UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, released a report this week claiming that the nature and scope of attacks by Israeli Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip, as well as the ruinous living conditions created there by Israel, "can only be interpreted as constituting prima facie evidence of an intention to systematically destroy the Palestinians as a group."
One Israeli told me he believes there is no need for such explosive terminology, while another asked whether there was any proof of these claims.
A woman who, until October 7 was affiliated with the left wing and has since sobered up, or awakened, had somehow seen – from beyond the Israeli iron curtain – a photograph of a Gazan child who was all skin and bones. She told me: "If these images are true, we must see them."
So Israelis may wonder, raise questions, doubt, downplay or revoke Palestinians and their tragedy, even when it is clear as day, published in a United Nations report, or broadcast live on a non-Israeli news channel. I recalled how back after October 7, Palestinians and others were forbidden from asking questions, from questioning "facts" or from asking for proof.
It is well known that claims by the Israeli side are viewed as gospel, and that whoever rejects them is an antisemitic supporter of Hamas. But when it happens on the Palestinian side, all claims are an exaggeration, a conspiracy, fake-news, and Israelis can and are even obligated to ask about their authenticity.
It is interesting just how important is it to ask whether the photographs are real, or whether these claims are supported by any shred of proof, when there is an abundance of evidence of children dying of malnutrition in Gaza.
This doubt that is cast on every Palestinian image, or video, or report, is part of the Israeli iron curtain, with the underlying assumption that all Palestinians are liars.
It is gaslighting of tremendous proportions that Israelis are inflicting upon themselves and on Palestinians, in order to go on ignoring the genocide the entire world has been continually warning about. Israelis refuse to see or listen, and are still convinced that everything is all right.
Israelis are addicted to the iron curtain, and this practice of denying reality is deeply embedded into the Israeli DNA. It is an integral part of the knotted problems Israelis bring upon themselves through their arrogance and boastfulness.
This denial of reality is present at almost every aspect. Are most Israelis aware, for example, that at the core of the current negotiations between Israel and Hamas, or rather at the core of lack of progress in these negotiations, lies the refugee problem? Israel does not want to allow evacuated Palestinians to return to the northern area of the Gaza Strip.
Are Israelis asking themselves what the purpose of permanently uprooting them from the north is and of leaving the area under Israel's control? That perhaps Israel wants an ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip, to be accompanied by establishing settlements just like in the West Bank, which would lead to the same inescapable state of constant warfare and the destruction of relationships with Palestinians everywhere?
From beyond the Israeli iron curtain, reality seems to most Israelis to be essentially good. However, the more they go on looking from behind that iron curtain, so will their distance from reality continue growing, until the inevitable fall into the gaping chasm. Will they still be able to break that curtain?