In A Very Modern Genocide

In the standard model genocide, the perpetrators have the tendency to behave guilty, like mugging street gangs. They dress up like baddies and make outrageous statements in a kind of language only they can really understand. They know they are breaking the law, but do it anyway. In a sort of way there is something very honest about this. The people who supply them with weapons do it very secretively and try to pretend they are nothing to do with it. Often genocidal governments don't even bother to justify what they are doing, but deny anything is going on, or create some group of out of control bandits who do the killing for them. Israel sees all that as far too old fashioned.

Israel plans its genocide with the help of international law experts. The law says you should warn the civilians that they are in a place where you are going to kill people, so, no problem, warning phone calls and leaflets are provided. The law says self defence is ok, so you make sure the people you are going to kill have some ineffective weapons and are angry and desperate enough that they will try to use them. The law says force must be proportionate. Well this is a matter of opinion, so you need a busy public relations department that keeps telling everyone that any massacres and wholesale terror is proportionate and in self defence.

All spokesmen have to speak the same way as the people around the world that you are trying to convince. Where the business of the mass killing of children can seem indefensible, phrases that help to distract judgement are carefully prepared and repeated. Specifically it is vital to make out that the people you are killing and terrorising are actually the people terrorising and killing your people. This does not need to be true, just keep saying it is.  Here there is a clear advantage if your people look the same as the people around the world that you are trying to convince that you are the nice guys. Nice clean modern houses, streets, clothes, shops and so on will help western people identify with you. By contrast, western people will not identify with women wearing scarves, standing in rubble and crying to the heavens. They may be upset by the dead bodies of brown children, but they wont identify with them as strongly as with some minor damage to a neighbourhood that looks like somewhere people like them might live.

Buying friends in high places in western democracies is cheap and exceptionally good value for money. Western politicians have two big concerns: raising enough money to get voted in and once voted in being able to maintain the energy supplies necessary to keep their economies going. Here Israel and its friends can do the double wammy. The people in democracies don't like paying for politicians and if they do they tend to want something in return, like having their countries run for the benefit of their own people. This is a serious constraint on a politicians career and can seriously undermine access to lucrative directorships and consultancy work later in life. Israel and its network of friends offers the modern western politician a sound deal: "We arrange some nice big donations to party funds for all electable parties; all we ask is that you sell us weapons, oppose any sanctions against us, stick up for us in public, denounce our enemies and if you want to go the whole hog, give us some of your taxpayers money. In return we will sit in the Middle East as your contract security force, ensuring that those bolshy Arabs never turn off the oil."

Despite very effective PR, genocide is messy and calls for a "ceasefire" are inevitable. Its vital not to be seen to be in a hurry to get all your killing done in one go. Remember, direct killing is only one tool in the genocide tool kit. Terror, starvation, economic destruction, disease, withholding medical supplies, destruction of infrastructure and places of worship all help to undermine the viability of the people you are trying to destroy. To avoid being the bad guy, always attend 'peace talks'. Its not necessary to actually comply with ceasefires: normally some act of everyday viciousness will be enough to get some aggression in return and this will excuse a resumption of killing. If further killing seems likely to be counter-productive, back off for a few years, using other genocide strategies and then give it another go. 

And then there is the matter of the weapons supplies. For any mass killing operation, to be seen as the good guys its very important to have very modern killing equipment. This helps claims of "surgical" killing and perhaps more importantly it makes the killing system look like the killing system of a modern western democracy. Now of course some of this killing equipment must be imported. Don't be secretive; its important that suppliers share in the guilt of war crimes.. However, to protect suppliers from any future litigation, don't get upset if weapons are supplied with a disclaimer: "The contents of this box are supplied on the condition that they will not be used for any illegal purpose". This means that if by some outrageous act of international treachery, Israel's friends turn on them and decide that bullshit is bullshit and that Israel is in fact just a bunch of genocidal lunatics, the shit wont stick to them. Well who ever said genocide was easy.