The Illusion Of Liberal Humanitarian Values

All of western liberalism’s much-vaunted institutions, its legal, political and cultural, have collapsed in on themselves to protect a genocidal, apartheid ethno-state.

This week, at the Berlinale film festival, one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, a journalist asked the jury why they’d never expressed solidarity with Palestinians like they’ve done previously with Ukrainians.

German director Wim Wenders, the president of the Berlinale jury, responded that the festival is “the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people, and not the work of politicians. We have to stay out of politics.”

This is the same Wenders who in 2024 said “the Berlinale has traditionally always been the most political of the major festivals, and it’s not holding back now, nor will it in the future. I like the Berlinale because it always speaks out and says something.”

Truly breath-taking. Two diametrically opposed ideological positions from the brain, and mouth, of the same man.

And a fascinating insight into a brain on Zionism.

When it comes to the genocide of Gaza, the Berlinale “has to stay out of politics.”

But when it comes to Ukraine, the Berlinale “has to speak out.”

Four years ago the festival issued a robust condemnation of Russia’s invasion, saying the country had committed a criminal war of aggression, noting its violation of international law and calling its attacks on civilian locations a catastrophe.

By contrast, the word Gaza hasn’t crossed their lips once. No mention of Israeli violations of international law, no mention of the massive civilian death toll, no solidarity with Palestinians. Not a word from a group of cultural elites who no doubt see themselves as progressive, compassionate and anti-racist.

And while it’s tempting to say this is all about racism, it’s not just that.

In 2016, the festival had a special segment dedicated to films focused on refugees during the height of the refugee crisis provoked by the Syrian civil war. German media lauded it at the time, saying it showed the Berlinale is “a political festival.”

So it’s not just about racism.

It’s about Zionism.

It’s about a Europe which has, in a turn of the utmost irony, done the most antisemitic thing possible and collapsed the distinction between Judaism and Zionism. To criticise Israel is to criticise Jews. And we can’t do that, because Europe is where the Jews were holocausted, and the holocaust has become Europe’s civic religion.

To criticise Israel today, even for acts of genocide, is a kind of social blasphemy.

And it’s also about imperialism.

The victims of the refugee crisis were the victims of an approved enemy.

Ukraine’s dead are victims of another approved enemy.

The Palestinians on the other hand are the victims of an approved imperial ally.

For European elites, solidarity, progressivism and compassion stop at the borders of empire.

Israel tops journalist murder ranking

But obviously it’s not just European elites.

Cultural liberal institutions self-censoring to protect Israeli war criminals has been a theme across the west.

This week it came to light that The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based non-profit promoting press freedom around the world, had cancelled its annual “Impunity Index” because Israel was set to top the ranking.

Whistleblowers at the CPJ told the Electronic Intifada that to avoid the pressure and criticism that would have come from putting Israel at the top of a ranking, bosses at the committee simply cancelled it. Rather than write the accompanying report which would have documented the fact that Israel is the number one killer of journalists in the world, employees were directed to write a “general global account” of the decline in press freedom.

A freedom of speech rights group cancelling their own speech because that speech bound them to criticism of Israel. Another breath-taking event underscoring the fact that liberal values have always been an illusion.

Looking at the CPJ’s donor list also reveals this episode to be another demonstration of the reach and extent of Zionist power. The CPJ is funded by wealthy Zionists including Ariel Investments, a Chicago-based fund that invests in Israeli spy-tech companies.

The episode demonstrates no principle is sacred if that principle clashes with Zionist interests and ideological preferences.

It demonstrates no value is unassailable if holding to that value exposes the true nature of Israel as a genocidal state.

It shows us that for the western professional class, being opposed to genocide is a selective value, dependent on who is doing the genocide and who the victims are.

Herzog in Australia

The selective nature of so-called liberal, humanitarian values was also on view in Australia this week following the state visit by the Israeli president and Epstein pal Isaac Herzog.

Protestors were brutally beaten by Australian police for chanting pro-Palestine slogans. One man was arrested simply for shouting “shame” in the direction of Herzog. On the day Herzog visited, Queensland said it was planning to make uttering the slogan ‘from the river to the sea’ punishable with a two-year prison sentence.

In the same week, a disabled Australian woman in a wheelchair pocket-dialled someone while in the offices of a Jewish nutritionist. The nutritionist reported the disabled woman to the police, claiming the muffled noises from her pocket were antisemitic. The woman was subsequently investigated by police for committing a possible hate crime.

You might be thinking “what the actual fuck is happening?”

What the fuck is happening is a confected, McCarthyite-level of hysteria to protect a genocidal regime because that regime is essential to western interests.

What’s happening is the full collapse of the distinction between Judaism and Zionism.

What’s happening is that the ideological agents of an apartheid state in our political, legal, business and cultural institutions have been activated to protect that state, regardless of its actions.

What’s happening is that popular sentiment against Israel is clashing with deeply embedded Zionist interests.

These interests used to be able to operate in the shadows, largely unencumbered by scrutiny.

Genocide changed that.

Watching children get split in half, beheaded, orphaned and starved for two years changed that.

Mass murder sanctioned by the west woke lots of people up to the fact that liberal values are a construct designed to make us feel good about our place in the world.

The cat is out of the bag.

And what we’re seeing are the desperate attempts to stuff it back in.

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