Israel is the world’s Frankenstein state

An Israeli flag covered with blood and a sticker of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu seen during a protest calling for the resigntion of Netanyahu as they name him responsible for the Israeli failure during the October 7 Hamas attack on November 04, 2023 in Jerusalem [Amir Levy/Getty Images]

by Rifat Audeh

In Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, the main character creates a being by stitching together parts from dead bodies. The resultant monster initially sought to fit into society, but transformed into an evil creature when faced with rejection by society. And in the novel, the monster’s creator, Victor Frankenstein, felt immense guilt for the deaths and terror that his creation wrought upon others.

The novel came out almost 100 years before Britain gave life to the plan to create a hybrid entity in the Middle East with the issue of the infamous 1917 Balfour Declaration. That and later imperialist action helped to create a much more sinister, diabolic monster in 1948: the state of Israel.

The imperial West’s creation was, it must be said, different to Shelley’s. While Frankenstein’s monster began by not harming anyone, Israel was actually founded on terrorism, killing, oppression and the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians. More than 500 Palestinian towns and villages have since been destroyed and wiped off the map. This is called the Nakba by the Palestinians: the catastrophe. The state’s founding ideology, Zionism, is based around genocide and racial supremacy, so this should not have been a surprise to anyone, then or now.

Israel has never sought to fit into the global community of civilised nations; that would have contradicted the ideology upon it was founded. And so, the pre-state massacres against the Palestinians — such as that in Deir Yassin — continued, with many more, including Tantura (1948), Gaza (1956) and Al-Aqsa Mosque (1990), to name but three. Over the decades, the killing went hand in hand with land theft; home demolitions; hundreds of thousands of political prisoners; the displacement of another 350,000 Palestinians in 1967; an illegal and brutal military occupation since 1967; attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque; the list goes on. Even the Palestinians who acquired citizenship in the part of Palestine now called Israel have not been spared from the state’s supremacist ideology. They face official discrimination under more than 65 Israeli laws which effectively make them second-class citizens.

The latest Israeli onslaught against the Palestinians in Gaza comes on top of a sixteen-year blockade and major military offensives in 2008/9, 2012, 2014 and 2021, as well as frequent incursions by the so-called Israel Defence Forces. Israeli soldiers shot and killed 189 protesters during the 2018 Great March of Return in the Gaza Strip, including 35 children; at least 36,000 were wounded, many of whom died of their injuries.

It should be clear to any reasonable person, therefore, that the history of violence in occupied Palestine did not begin on 7 October with the attack by Palestinian resistance fighters across the nominal border into the occupation state. And that most of the violence has been perpetrated by Israel.

The Palestinians are not just statistics, though, they are human beings, with families, loved ones, hopes, dreams and aspirations
This Frankenstein monster of a state has continued its genocidal path, bombing hospitals and other civilian infrastructure — including homes, mosques and churches — as well as cutting off food, water, electricity and medicine supplies from 2.3 million people. Most of the 27,500 Palestinians killed since 7 October have been children and women; the IDF targets civilians “purposely”. The Palestinians are not just statistics, though, they are human beings, with families, loved ones, hopes, dreams and aspirations, who are living through hell and bombardment every day as Israel’s genocide takes place in real time on social media.

When I hear the despicable claim that Israel has a right to “defend itself”, I say keep quiet until you pull your head out of that dark place. Israel is an occupying power. It has no legal right to self-defence against the people living under its occupation. Indeed, in this case it is the Palestinians who have the right to resist that occupation, and defend themselves, using any means at their disposal, including armed struggle. That’s the law. Supporting Israel’s non-existent “right to self-defence” is simply the West’s way of giving it the green light to carry on with its genocide.

Moreover, Israelis are now calling openly for the genocide of the Palestinian people, reminding us of their compatriots who were cheering the bombs as they dropped on the heads of Palestinian children in Gaza in 2014. It is possible that the Hamas fighters came into contact with those “innocent” Israelis on 7 October.

In the original story, Victor Frankenstein felt guilty for what he created. Yet not only do the bloodthirsty imperialists in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and Brussels not feel guilty for what they created in occupied Palestine, but they have also encouraged it to carry on with its crimes. They are joined by a chorus of propagandists masquerading as journalists and experts, creating a monstrous world in the process, and carving out a history that will never forgive them.