Slavoj Žižek explains in depth the conflict between I/s/r/a/e/l & H/a/m/a/s

The ideas in it 10

in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here

Stories he reaches for 1

the atheist Zionist claiming God's promise

In debates with pro-Netanyahu Jewish intellectuals, Žižek asks why the land is theirs; they cite the Bible, then, asked if they believe in God, answer 'of course not, I'm an atheist', yet they hold that God gave them the land.

“they say but it's all in the Bible, that's our tradition... do you believe in God? ... no of course not, I'm an atheist. Yet they think God gave them that land.”

Works invoked 2

The Bible book

Cited critically: pro-Israeli intellectuals invoke biblical title to the land while being atheists, and Netanyahu invokes Amalek as a genocidal precedent, the Bible is used as a warrant for ethnic cleansing.

1948 NYT public declaration (Einstein, Arendt et al.) other

The paid full-cover declaration warning that pre-Likud radicals' methods 'look like Nazism, Nazi terrorist tactics', invoked as founding-era evidence that the extremist strain was always there.

People invoked 11

Bezalel Smotrich negative

Cited for public statements that 'we need Hamas' to prevent a two-state solution and for the fundamentalist-messianic-state mentality.

Thomas Jefferson positive

Quoted, 'when the law is unjust, rebellion is a duty', to reframe the limits of tolerated compassion for Palestinians as victims.

Itamar Ben-Gvir negative

Named (with Smotrich) as the extremist face whose justifications track what the army actually does; example of the radical strain now in government.

Ephraim Halevy positive

Ex-Mossad chief whose 'condemned to coexist / political equality' position Žižek endorses as the unsayable-but-correct stance; deployed against Zionist interlocutors.

Hanan Ashrawi positive

He endorses her prediction that Israel would become 'more fundamentalist than we are'; uses her as the authority for his claim that Israel is now a model aggressive fundamentalist state.

Benjamin Netanyahu negative

Cited for the Amalek speech to soldiers as an explicit call for genocide, and for his government's fundamentalist-messianic politics; explicit polemical target throughout.

Hannah Arendt positive

Co-signer of the 1948 NYT declaration warning against the radicals' Nazi-style tactics; invoked as part of the founding-era Jewish moral critique.

Vladimir Putin negative

Mentioned geopolitically: if the West-vs-third-world split hardens, 'Putin will become some kind of fighter for freedom', a prospect he presents as a warning, not an endorsement.

Nelson Mandela positive

Cited via the ANC example: peaceful negotiation succeeded only because a radical wing threatened violence behind it, though the political outcome he calls a catastrophe.

Martin Luther King Jr. positive

Cited alongside Mandela as the moderate face of a struggle that succeeded only because of a threatening radical wing behind it.

Albert Einstein positive

Co-signer of the 1948 NYT declaration warning that the pre-Likud radicals' methods 'look like Nazism, Nazi terrorist tactics', a moral precedent Žižek invokes.

What it argues

Israel's plan for a 'big Israel' from the river to the seaThe Zionist instrumentalization of antisemitism and the HolocaustGaza as the logic of urban gentrification (concentrate then clear)Hamas and Israeli hardliners as perverted co-conspiratorsThe cynical use of 'humanitarian' language to mask crueltyEurope's disappearance as a serious political actorTrue friendship as severity, not permissive solidarity

Dialectical moves 8

“Palestinians are Ukraine... don't be seduced by this Israeli smallness. Israel is the military superpower.”

Inverts the framing of Israel as the small endangered state: Israel is the superpower, Palestinians are the endangered small nation.

“I always laugh when they prohibit the term from the river to the sea. No, that's their politics.”

The banned slogan names the Zionists' own actual program; the prohibition disavows what Israel itself enacts.

“A true friend has to be severe when you are making mistakes.”

True loyalty is severity toward the friend's errors, not permissive solidarity, unconditional support is the opposite of friendship.

“the true horror happens I think on the West Bank.”

Redirects attention from the Gaza spectacle to the slower, structural violence of occupation that underpins it.

“only a zero level total despair on both sides can resolve... it's simply sorry it's madness this cannot go on.”

Only the collapse of the win/lose frame, both sides past the point of calculation, can open coexistence.

“Arabs hate us. My answer is yes and you make them hate us.”

The hatred invoked to justify repression is itself produced by the repression; the pretext generates the thing it complains of.

“it's not just a tiny elite, it's simply the politics of the state of Israel now.”

The extremist program is the state's actual politics, not a marginal faction, the moderate-vs-radical split is a disavowal.

“You know when they are most horrible Israelis? When they use the word humanitarian.”

The language of humanity marks the exact moment of greatest cruelty, the moral vocabulary is the mask of the atrocity.

Claims 19

asserts Israel's longstanding goal is a 'big Israel' from the river to the sea; it never genuinely wanted the two-state solution or authentic peace.Israel's territorial aim

asserts Hamas hardliners and Israeli-government hardliners are, in a perverted sense, coordinating — each does what the other needs.Hamas–Israeli hardliner coordination

asserts Israel wants Palestinians maximally radicalized so it can keep framing itself as endangered and justify expanding control indefinitely.radicalization of Palestinians

reframes Israel's conduct is manufacturing a new antisemitism worldwide, and may strategically want this in order to keep playing the victim / new-Holocaust card.generation of new antisemitism

reframes The 'humanitarian' framing of the Gaza operation — QR-coded zoning, displacement warnings — is a cynical cover for ethnic cleansing, not restraint.the 'humanitarian' framing of Gaza

reframes Gaza is being processed by the same logic as urban gentrification: concentrate the unwanted population in one tolerated zone, then clear the zone itself.Gaza as gentrification

asserts The European ideology of universal human rights is now totally discredited by the West's selective, pressure-free response to Gaza.universal human rights

asserts Europe is disappearing as a serious political actor — this is the first geopolitical victim of the current Western stance.Europe's geopolitical fate

asserts The United States is losing tremendously to the BRICS block (India, China, etc.) as a consequence of its stance on Gaza.US vs. BRICS

reframes Palestinians, not Israel, are 'Ukraine'; Israel is the military superpower, not an endangered small state.the Israel–Ukraine analogy

asserts Western Europe (especially Germany) tolerates Israeli crimes to assuage Holocaust guilt — an unethical stance, not true friendship.German/European Holocaust guilt

reframes True friendship with Israel means severity toward its mistakes, not unconditional support.true friendship

asserts Peaceful settlements (South Africa, US civil rights) worked only because a radical wing threatened violence behind the moderates; Hamas may have played an 'objectively positive role' in pushing to the edge.violence as condition of peaceful negotiation

asserts Only a zero-level total despair on both sides — where winning becomes irrelevant and 'this cannot go on' — can force coexistence.path to resolution

asserts Netanyahu's invocation of Amalek is an explicit call for genocide, paralleling the biblical ethnic cleansing the earlier Zionists were once ashamed to mention.Netanyahu's Amalek reference

reframes Pro-Israeli Jewish intellectuals claim biblical title to the land while being atheists — a paradox of secular messianic entitlement.the secular-messianic paradox

reframes The prohibited slogan 'from the river to the sea' names Israel's actual politics, not a Palestinian aspiration.the banned slogan

asserts Advocating political equality and coexistence (Ephraim Halevy's position) is treated in the West as antisemitic.coexistence branded as antisemitic

rejects The radical/extremist strain (Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, the pre-Likud 'Palestinian terrorists') is not a recent aberration but has been present from Israel's founding.the moderate-vs-extremist framing of Israel

Quotes 9

“I always laugh when they prohibit the term from the river to the sea. No, that's their politics.”
Slavoj Žižek · the banned slogan names the actual Zionist program

“A true friend has to be severe when you are making mistakes.”
Slavoj Žižek · true friendship as severity

“Palestinians are Ukraine... don't be seduced by this Israeli smallness. Israel is the military superpower.”
Slavoj Žižek · inverting the small-endangered-state framing

“only a zero level total despair on both sides can resolve... it's simply sorry it's madness this cannot go on.”
Slavoj Žižek · the only path to coexistence

“we did a crime, mega crime to you, and to this is why to assuage our guilt we will tolerate you doing your own crimes there”
Slavoj Žižek · Holocaust guilt as license for Israeli crimes

“You know when they are most horrible Israelis? When they use the word humanitarian.”
Slavoj Žižek · humanitarian language as the mask of cruelty

“the goal of Israel... is to do in the West Bank what they already are doing now in Gaza. Simply clear the territory, make it purely Jewish.”
Slavoj Žižek · the territorial-cleansing aim

“the notion of universal human rights, all this European ideology, is totally discredited.”
Slavoj Žižek · collapse of European liberal ideology

“I see the end of Europe as a serious political agent, which will be a tragedy.”
Slavoj Žižek · Europe's geopolitical disappearance

Transcript 1 turns

Slavoj Žižek
You know what happened to me when I am with in dialogue with Jewish intellectuals? Not often, but it happens, those who are very pro-Israeli now, pro-Israeli in the sense of the present Netanyahu government. When you ask them a simple question: why do you think this land is yours? And by this land I mean from the river to the sea, as they say, all of it. And they say but it's all in the Bible, that's our tradition, no? Okay, then I do something tricky like if the conversation goes on minutes later or more, I ask them by the way do you believe in God? And the answer I get almost always is no of course not, I'm an atheist. Yet they think God gave them that land. With regard to what goes on now in Israel, by Israel I don't mean all people there, I mean with the Zionists. You know till two three months ago, if you mention Amalek, you know, or Canaanites, however you call them, the people whom the Jews ethnically cleansed because it's in the Bible, yes, it was considered already antisemitic. You shouldn't talk about this, it's another historical situation. Of course it is, my answer is, sorry I'll put this down, my answer is of course it is, and I'm not blaming specifically the Jews because everybody was doing this at that time. But you cannot apply that reasoning to today. So again, now I come to the paradox. You know if you mention this, but how did you get the land of Israel, wasn't it an ethnic slaughter, a genocide as we call it today? It was considered unfair. But now Israeli top politicians are explicitly referring to Amalek and drawing a parallel. In some interview a couple of weeks ago, Netanyahu said, I think it was a speech to some soldiers: remember you are fighting Amalek today. The same struggle goes on for thousands of years, which is in itself a call for genocide because Amalek, we know what happened to them and the idea is clear, we should do the same thing today. So isn't it horrible that something for which Zionists, about which something Zionists were ashamed, let's not talk about that blah blah, now loudly publicly mentioning? Yes, I condemn Hamas for that senseless killing and so on, but what is now Israel doing especially in Gaza? But don't forget the West Bank. If we are now all fascinated by Gaza, but my god, the true horror happens I think on the West Bank. And the [unintelligible] why? You know this systematic pressure of Palestinians and the most horrible thing is that from the standpoint of an ordinary peaceful Palestinian, there is no authority to which you can refer. Like a settler attacks you and you call the police or the military, they basically even help the settlers. Let me be and I make this point in my, my premise is how the hardliners in Hamas and the hardliners in Israeli government are really in some perverted sense coordinating their activity, doing what the other wants. For example, already incidentally, there are even some suspicious details at this level. For example it's now clear that Israel was, around two weeks before the Hamas attack, Israel was informed about it by Egyptians, by United States and by its own secret services. Even more of a mystery, it's now made clear that Israel had a division there in Southern Israel close to Gaza, the whole division of soldiers and again, two or three weeks before, they moved this division to the West Bank. I like your expression, it's not, I don't believe in subjective conspiracy theories. What I always ask Jewish colleagues with whom I debate and they tell me but why do you mention only Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, they are a minority, yes, but they, if you look at what Israeli army is doing and if you look for an explanation or justification, you find it with them. Now my next pessimist conclusion, and this is the level of conspiracy theory to which I am nonetheless ready to go, it's not just that Israel supported Hamas to prevent the two-state solution, as we have public statements from Smotrich, from Netanyahu and so on where they clearly said we need Hamas, mentality of a fundamentalist messianic state. They, you know what, you remember Hanan Ashrawi? Hanan Ashrawi said don't always tell me this story about how you are open, democratic, we are fundamentalist. No, soon you will be, she predicted this over years ago, soon you will be more fundamentalist than we are. Today Israel is a model of a new aggressive fundamentalist state. And you know, people tell me but Israel had to defend itself. Okay, up to a point, but let me add something, here is my pessimism. Israel didn't need Hamas only to keep the Palestinians divided. The basic point was that if you have aggressive Arabs who say openly no peace with you and so on, then you can again claim now we are in danger as it was in the time of Holocaust and so on and this then justifies them to do what they want. It's not even sure that it will be limited just to Gaza and West Bank. It may reach also a little bit of Syria, Southern Lebanon or whatever. Israel wants now Palestinians as radicalized as possible. I'm not saying it was ever true peace and understanding, settlers were always there annoying, there was apartheid. But let me put it in a way that will annoy some of my Palestinian friends. I'm not saying this apartheid was tolerable, but it was more peaceful with a, how should I call it, at least it was more a bureaucratic occupation, you know? Like on the West Bank it wasn't so much direct violence in the interest of Israel. Like some friend told me, but listen now according to some data percent of the people on the West Bank have now sympathies with Hamas. I said but what other options do they have? When the condition of peace is that Palestinians are allowed to organize, Palestinians under Israeli control as an authentic political movement. The first thing which I think still is crucial is that you know what happens really in Gaza. Do you know, if you were in the West what the term means, but in your parts of the world it should also be going on, what they call gentrification. How does gentrification proceed? I know when I was in New York on the Lower East Side, area around so-called Tompkins Square was gentrified. How? They first cleared the area around so that all the under quotation marks evil, drugs, violence and so on was concentrated in that part only. They tolerated it there. And then all of a sudden they attacked the park itself. I think this is what was happening in Gaza. They concentrated there all the Palestinian refugees and so on. Most people in Gaza are not from Gaza. They are refugees and now that they have them there they want in this American brutal style to finish the gentrification. Now we clear that, throw them out. It's clear how something that was at first denied that they want to clear Gaza of Arabs, now they are openly stating it. You know all those cynical calls that they should go to Sinai, then they should move them all around the world and so on and so on. Which sounds to me so cynical because you know what they were doing history in Europe to the Jews they are now doing it. And you know what I find especially cynical? How Israel uses the term of humanitarianism. We are doing it in the most humane way. So again, my big obsession is that behind all this new Holocaust and so on there simply is the, the plan of Israel, which I think unfortunately it's not just a tiny elite, it's simply the politics of the state of Israel now. They want the whole area. I always laugh when they prohibit the term from the river to the sea. No, that's their politics. I think that the goal of Israel, maybe they haven't yet decided, maybe they did, in the worst case is to do in the West Bank what they already are doing now in Gaza. Simply clear the territory, make it purely Jewish. There are some signs that they even, because it would also economically make sense in the same sense that they said maybe we can tolerate in Gaza like or thousand Arabs in the Gaza after the war, that they have a similar plan for the West Bank. Now another thing, at the beginning when I just mentioned in Frankfurt but sorry Palestinians are also suffering, that was already antisemitism too much. Now did you notice what happened now? When we are bombarded by all the TV shots of what's happening there, now compassion with Palestinians is tolerated. But it must be compassion for Palestinians as victims. If you make a step, if you make a step further and say but wait a minute. I quoted in one of my texts Thomas Jefferson my god the American founding father, who said when the law is unjust, rebellion is a duty. Do you notice another difference? How with Israel even if now they are giving warnings to Israel, not even warnings, the popular term in the West is now: yes in Gaza there is too much suffering so we should, we advise, we are concerned by it, we ask Israel to show some limitation and so on and so on. This means nothing. They are not putting any any serious pressure on Israel. You know what annoyed some of Zionists that I met? I think we should use the enemy when he she they says something which makes sense if you take it seriously. You know to the horror of my Palestinian friends even I quoted Ephraim Halevy, the ex-chief of Mossad, who said listen, two groups live here, we are condemned to coexist and the only solution is and he said political equality. No group has, find rules of coexistence and so on and so on. Isn't it sad that to say something like this is normally if you say it in the West considered already antisemitic? When Israel said but this is not realistic, Arabs hate us. My answer is yes and you make them hate us. This justifies you to go further and further to do it. So let's, the minimum, okay, here is my position. I think that this military invasion of Gaza, which could have been done even if you accept and I don't accept it totally the Israeli military intervention. But the way they did it, it was as if they are making fun of it. You know when they are most horrible Israelis? When they use the word humanitarian. You remember for humanitarian reasons they sent to via out for the QR code, Gaza divided into parts and then move here move there. This was a bad joke. Then, can you imagine, it's so easy to imagine. Let's say, I don't buy it quite, but let's say Israel had to clear Hamas. But the logical thing would have been what would I have done if I were to be a true moderate Zionist? I would have said it's only Hamas fanatical members, then I would have said let's send together with the army thousands, tens of thousands of international observers, food help, doctors and so on. You know where I saw what is happening? You remember that horror when they cut Gaza into two and first they even said in hours all of them should move down. I think I am a pessimist if you ask me. I wonder if you will agree. First, I ask myself are Israelis rational? Rational in the sense of they all the time warn about new antisemitism. But by doing what they are doing now, people in the third world, all around the world and also in the West, bombarded with images from Gaza. Aren't they doing the worst thing imaginable to give birth to new antisemitism? Because because Israelis are let's say and neither is Hamas not stupid. Why are they doing it? I think they want literally to provoke antisemitism new wave to again be able to play the victim, you see new Holocaust. It's a long shot but I cannot I cannot imagine why is Israel doing what it is doing. Don't you agree that the basic aim is to create what they see as a safe large expanded Israel? Israel from the river to the sea. They knew that if Palestinians also on the West Bank are not more radicalized, it is difficult to go on with settlers violence and so on and so on. They want the Palestinians more radicalized. So now if I may conclude with another thing which may shock you. What makes me even more sad is how Ukraine, and I was totally on the Ukrainian side. But Ukraine is now playing the game we are like Israel, small endangered place by a superpower. I think exactly the opposite. Palestinians are Ukraine, attacked by a, don't be seduced by this Israeli smallness. Israel is the military superpower. What I see in the background is this which really makes me worry. How because of this fake, it's not fake, they were guilty of Holocaust, but they are doing especially Germany but Western Europe in general also, something extremely unethical. Okay, we in Europe, not you, did something horrible to the Jews. And now what we are saying to Israel is: we did a crime, mega crime to you, and to this is why to assuage our guilt we will tolerate you doing your own crimes there, you know? I think I put it in this pathetic terms, this is not even a true friendship with Israel. A true friend has to be severe when you are making mistakes. A true friend of Israel today should say at least what my god the ex-boss of Mossad says. Here are two groups of people condemned to live with each other to live with each other. If both are not politically free there will never be peace. Israel really never wanted, not even the two-state solution, not even authentic peace. Israel, the only way to explain what they are doing is they all the time for decades not just with present government wanted they wanted a big Israel. That's why they didn't already annex. Some friends are telling me but if Israel wanted big Israel why didn't they simply annex West Bank? Eh because West Bank is over million Palestinians. Simply annexing it would have meant giving them, because today in our pseudo-democratic atmosphere you need you have to have general elections blah blah so they would have to give them the right to vote. Now with this war they found a solution. If you demonize Palestinians as such, if you claim, because this is now what Israeli radicals are already claiming and this is the actual politics of Israel, it's not there are moderate Palestinians and then there is Hamas. No, they claim they are all more or less sympathetic to Hamas, which means we have to treat them the way we treat Hamas. How this split was there already before Israel became a state when they were still fighting for it in You know that how radicals out of which then Likud party emerged, you know how they referred to themselves proudly? Palestinian terrorist in literally they used this term. in New York Times big Jewish intellectuals, Einstein, Hannah Arendt and so on, published a paid full cover text, public declaration warning against this. They used the term it looks like Nazism, Nazi terrorist tactics. So yes this tension is there from is there from the beginning. It's not just Israel was an ideal liberal democracy and then o Ben-Gvir and Smotrich came. No, they were all the time there as an underground. Example of how peaceful solution can work, negotiations. South Africa and Martin Luther King American struggle for black rights. But in both cases I wrote about this somewhere, it worked only because there was a pressure of violence behind. African National Congress Mandela succeeded although ultimately now it's a political catastrophe because it was clear that there was also a much more radical wing there which threatened violence. It was the same in the United States. So I think that in this sense I'm ready to say that Hamas, it's horrible to say, I will be lynched for this among Zionists, may have played objectively a positive role. In the sense of pushing us to the edge, pushing us to the edge where, and that's my only hope, where we will be so much down at the bottom that the point will not even be who win but this cannot go on, it's total despair, no big negotiations let's just try to live with each other. I think only a zero level total despair on both sides can resolve, can not resolve, can somehow, it's not a big resolution, it's simply sorry it's madness this cannot go on. The main move should come here from Israel. What I always repeat, put yourself into the hand into the head sorry of a West Bank Palestinian. What hope does he have? It's just slowly slowly more and more pressure. You know what really worries me? Because more a general geopolitical conclusion. Because if this goes on the result will be one Western block of developed countries against all the third world, which will include even horrible totalitarian regimes, so that Putin will become some kind of a fighter for freedom. You know I follow this in so-called moderate Arab states. I saw shots from Morocco, from Jordan, hundreds of thousands of people protest on the street for ceasefire for Gaza for Palestine. Not so openly of course. Did you notice that even in the Western developed countries, France, England, United States, you have mega the majority if not properly Palestinians is pro ceasefire? Now I think the notion of universal human rights, all this European ideology, is totally discredited. I claim that not in terms of human lives, but in terms of geopolitical situation, the first victim of this will be Europe. It will simply disappear. It is already disappearing as a serious actor. Nobody takes it seriously. And point two, United States will lose tremendously with regard to this BRICS block India, China and so on. So I think that we should we by we I mean now Europe but I'm afraid we will not, we should become more active precisely not just out of humanitarian compassion help solidarity with Gaza people but for our own fate. I see the end of Europe as a serious political agent, which will be a tragedy. Because do you want to live in a world where at the basic level the only serious choice is China or United States? Sorry, I wouldn't like to live in a world like this.