Martín López Corredoira
On the toxic spawn created by the West
- State terrorism
In these times, when euphemisms serving political correctness distort the description of reality, it’s important to refer to things by name. For example, what exactly is a pirate? According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a pirate is “a person who sails in a ship and attacks other ships in order to steal from them.” In a broader metaphorical sense, we can consider piracy not only the theft of ships on the seas but also land that legitimately belongs to others. And what does it mean to “steal”? Again referring to the Cambridge Dictionary, to steal is “to take something without the permission or knowledge of the owner and keep it.” And what is “terrorism”? It is “violent action of threats designed to cause fear among ordinary people, in order to achieve political aims” (Cambridge Dictionary). It is worth asking whether these definitions fit the direct or indirect action of the State of Israel.
Before addressing the issue, it is worth noting how timidly international organizations, governments, and high-profile Western media outlets have pointed out the atrocities committed by the State of Israel over the past 75 years and with increasing intensity in the last 20 months. You can rail against some banana republic, Russia, North Korea, or similar nation and aggressively criticize them in the media, even if they don’t reach the level of barbarism Israel is committing, but you can’t do that with the darling United States.
The reasons for this timidity are called “diplomacy.” We know that Israel is a rogue state that has positioned itself outside of international law conventions and UN resolutions (its very own mother). Still, its leaders cannot clarify what they are because that would end diplomatic relations with this powerful State, which is also an ally of the nation that dominates the planet. Falling out with Israel, and therefore with the United States, can have serious economic and political consequences. The situation is similar to what the Italian island of Sicily suffered when the Mafia controlled it and all its levers of power; virtually no one dared to call the Mafiosi what they were or criticize them for fear of reprisals. So, we have to let the Mafia run its course and keep the rest of us quiet, because otherwise, Uncle Sam will blame us. What Israel does may be miserable, what the United States does may be miserable, but no less miserable are those who remain silent and urge others to keep quiet and let things happen out of cowardice or self-interest.
Another trick that Israel frequently uses to repel criticism of its “policies” on the Palestinian issue is appealing to anti-Semitism. The logic goes something like this: if you criticize Israel, you criticize Jews around the world; therefore, you are an anti-Semite, as Hitler was, which makes you a Nazi. This argument seems rather unfortunate to me. It’s like saying one is anti-Islamist for criticizing policies in Saudi Arabia or Iran, or anti-Catholic for criticizing policies in Spain or France. Not all Jews live in Israel, nor do all Jews feel that Israel’s policies represent them. Nevertheless, even for Jews who live in or feel connected to Israel, no racial, ethnic, or religious criticism is being made when one speaks of that country.
Not all countries’ stances on the issue are clear. In the United States, where, for well-known reasons, Israeli lobbyists wield immense power, it’s difficult for citizens to separate anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism. The two concepts are deliberately conflated and frequently bring up the Jewish Holocaust. There have been other ethnic massacres in the 20th century, but none with such a sophisticated marketing campaign. There is also a certain nervousness in the United States when the topic of Israel is discussed. On more than one occasion, I’ve encountered colleagues living in the United States visiting Europe who, when this topic comes up, nervously look around, as if afraid that hidden cameras or microphones are nearby, before they open their mouths and express their opinions.
The power of Israeli lobbyists to point the finger at someone and cause them to lose their jobs is well known. Moreover, some Israeli companies control the content of the major media outlets. For example, Spanish media outlets are threatened with the withdrawal of advertising that fuels these media outlets if they criticize the Zionist-terrorist State. At the European level, lobbyists often act as pressure groups in community decisions in Brussels, bribing members of the European Parliament with gifts of all-expenses-paid trips to Israel in luxury hotels. Such bribes create revolving doors through which politicians are offered positions once they leave the European Parliament. Hundreds of millions of euros are moved by agencies linked to pro-Israeli pressure groups such as the European Commission. Leadership Network, the AJC Transatlantic Institute, and B’nai B’rith. There is a whole network, usually called Israelgate. This powerful group’s behavior is Mafia-like, but this doesn’t mean that Jews feel represented by Israel or by the corresponding lobbyists in other nations.
The Israeli State’s exploits in recent months have even embarrassed its own preferred partner, the United States, which sends Israel constant messages as if to say, “You’re going too far. You’re giving me a bad reputation on the international stage.” However, these are nothing more than light-hearted reprimands, like those of a father who is proud of his son even if he considers him somewhat naughty.
Meanwhile, the United States is there, playing the role of protector, so that no one dares to stop Israel, or so it is believed (there could be surprises in the future). The role the United States is forced to play in defending its partner is pathetic. After the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, it deployed two aircraft carriers and other warships in the area. Obviously, this action was not necessary to confront Hamas in Gaza, which has neither ships nor warplanes. The aircraft carriers were placed in the area not to help crush the Palestinians in Gaza (the Israeli army is more than capable of doing this without help) but so that no external country (mainly Iran) would dare declare war on Israel for its genocidal actions. The American message was, “Beat them up. I’ll cover your back.”
Of course, it is reasonable for Israel to bring to justice the terrorists who carried out the October 7 attack on its territory. Still, the fact that such a campaign was called a “war” seems like self-permission to indiscriminately kill not just the terrorists but also civilians. This has been going on for 20 months. It is not a war because there aren’t two armies from two opposing countries, and Israel does not even recognize the latter as a free state. It is not a civil war, either.
The spirit of vengeance, typical of the God of the Old Testament, prevails, along with a law of exact retaliation with an Israeli reinterpretation, which reads, “a hundred of your eyes for each of mine, and a hundred of your teeth for each of mine.” The point is to show the world that killing an Israeli is very expensive, even when it is justified, and that the life of a hundred Palestinian children is worth less than that of one Israelian child because they are the chosen people.
Israel frequently excuses its monstrous massacres by saying that its objective is to destroy Hamas but that stupid civilians get in the way. Indeed civilians have nowhere to hide because wherever they go, there is destruction and death. A terrorist may be hiding behind every hospital, ambulance, refugee camp, school, church, or temple of any religion—or so the Israeli forces claim—and, therefore, it is worth killing thousands of civilians to capture a handful of terrorists. So much Israeli military power, so much boasting about surgical operations, and all they can do is shoot and bomb left and right with no regard for who they kill. To use a simile, this would be equivalent to bombing the entire Basque Country during the terrorism carried out by ETA in Spain to flush out the terrorists from their hiding places while also killing tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens through bombing, sieges, hunger, disease, and so on.
It is unreasonable to bomb neighboring countries to kill a terrorist or a political ally of terrorists or to bomb third-party consulates. Imagine France’s reaction if Spain had bombed France when an ETA member escaped there. But Israel’s arrogance knows no bounds, and the nation believes it can override all diplomatic extradition agreements and bomb neighboring countries at will, and it still wonders how this could escalate the war.
Israel’s exploits in making friends in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, the West Bank, Gaza, and Iran give the impression of a dangerous, nervous madman holding a machine gun. Some might argue that Israel has the right to defend itself and preserve its security. Without starting a discussion about the legitimacy of these military actions, it is worth pointing out Israel’s methods as more typical of bloodthirsty terrorist commandos than of an army bound by codes of honor and with a minimum of humanity. It is shocking that it is acting like a terrorist to combat terrorism. Operations such as blowing up the pagers and walkie-talkies of thousands of soldiers and civilians in Lebanon are in no way inferior to those of the masters of international terrorism, including the attack on the Twin Towers. The constant and incessant bombing of defenseless civilians in Gaza, Lebanon, and other areas is also in no way inferior to the methods used by the greatest war criminals of all time.
Israel is not fighting a war but is engaging in state terrorism, seeking to make it clear who’s the boss in the Middle East. Its objective seems to be to cause as much damage as possible, no matter what the Israelian Government says to the contrary. In this context, the saying, “terrorism is the war of the poor, war is the terrorism of the rich,” is perfectly understandable. The Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 are, of course, reprehensible and unjustifiable, but, as UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized, “the Hamas attack does not come out of nowhere.” In other words, Israel must have done something recently to become the target of an attack, although that doesn’t justify that attack. This comment seems to have offended Israel, and its diplomatic extortion machine demanded a resignation and apology from Guterres. But the truth is that Guterres spoke a very real truth that can no longer be silenced by an appeal in the name of supposed offenses.
The message Israel has been sending to Palestinians in recent decades is something like, “We’re going to steal your land little by little and expel you from it. And stay calm—don’t try to defend yourselves, or we’ll take your land by way of genocide or forced mass exodus.” This happens not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, where settlers have continued to steal land, taking advantage of the revolts of recent months. A 2024 documentary film on the subject, No Other Land (Palestine-Norway), winner of the 2025 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, illustrates this theme. Incidentally, on March 24, 2025, co-director Hamdan Ballal was attacked by a group of Israeli settlers armed with batons, knives, and at least one assault rifle in his home in the village of Masafer Yatta, West Bank. After the attack, he was taken to an ambulance but was arrested by Israeli soldiers while still bleeding. The next day, he was released after spending the entire night tied up at a military base while two soldiers beat him on the ground.
The Israeli army has also entered the West Bank in recent months under the guise of fighting terrorism, creating chaos wherever it goes and forcing several Palestinian citizens to leave their homes, while Israel occupies (and steals) their territories. It’s a crushing logic that serves religious fanatics who dream of a “Greater Israel.” Meanwhile, condemnations are growing among the international community, and the terms “non-compliance with UN resolutions” and “war crimes” are frequently bandied about—all words that are quickly forgotten. Beyond that, European nations are playing the role of the United States’ lapdog once again.
The Trump administration is following a similar line to that of the former occupants of the White House, expressing its intention to support Israel in the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands to turn Gaza into a tourist area for Westerners. This is a disgusting, decadent civilization. First, Israel bombs Gaza people and destroys their homes, taking tens of thousands of innocent lives through massacres, famine, preventable diseases, and so on. Then, they tell the survivors something that could be translated as, “This is hell. We’re going to do you a favor, and now that you have no homes, we’re going to force you into exile and disperse you in different places around the world so you won’t have a homeland or a sense of unity as a people.”
One might think that the atrocities Israel is committing could be blamed on some satraps who are leading the nation down paths the people reject. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case. First, because their government was elected at the polls and supported by a good portion of Israelis, though not all (of course, many decent people in Israel reject these murderous policies). Second, there has been no domestic protest movement against the massacres in Gaza. It is striking that Israelis took to the streets to protest against their government and call for a ceasefire in Gaza when they heard that six hostages had been killed. However, their reasons for protesting did not include the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians massacred by the Israeli army. It seems that Israelis only care about their wealthy compatriots. Their souls do not sink in the face of the dozens of hospitals, schools, and churches that have been bombed, the thousands upon thousands of Palestinians who have nothing to do with terrorism are buried, or the famine caused by sieges, disease, and so on.
My country, Spain, has rightly (in my opinion) gone beyond the European Union by raising its criticism of Israel and recognizing the State of Palestine, albeit while balancing and trying to maintain friendship with the criminal State of Israel. A common association, at least in Spain, is that criticizing Israel in favor of Palestine is synonymous with being left-wing and vice versa. This is fostered by the fact that the flocks of voters of the different parties tend to join the proclamations of their leaders. However, justice belongs to neither the right nor the left; it is universal for anyone who sees politics as a means to a world with fewer abuses, and this issue distances itself from discussions about neoliberal or socialist economic systems. Those who have championed the Palestinian cause the most have been left-wing parties. Nevertheless, we must not forget that a good portion of the right wing comes from Christian ethics and defends human values, which cannot remain indifferent to what is happening in Palestine.
- Israel, a symbol of the moral decline of the West
The history of Europe and the United States is littered with international actions that cannot be called moral, just, or promoting the universal good. Consider, for example, the 19th-century Opium Wars, which the British drug cartels imposed on China due to its reluctance to allow the drug to be freely imported into their country. However, since the end of World War II and the creation of the United Nations and similar organizations, a naive rhetoric has been flaunted to argue for a rules-based international order based on impartial justice. It’s hard to believe in the impartiality or universality of these rules, but some of the world’s many thumb-sucking citizens have believed it. Until now, mantras like “international law” and “human rights” have told the world which direction to follow. However, it seems that things will not stay this way in the future.
It was only recently (and it’s not over yet) that the Western world was hysterical with Russophobia over the invasion of Ukraine and the fact that the number of civilians killed by the Russian army in a single year (or the previous thousands of civilian casualties in the Donbass region caused by the Ukrainian army between 2014 and 2021, which have continued since Russia’s invasion) was similar to what Israel has caused in a single month. This has led to a long series of blockades against Russia, the plundering of its assets and those of its citizens abroad, the expulsion of embassy staff, various sanctions (including against Belarus because it is a Russian ally even though it did not participate in the war in Ukraine), and the shipment of weapons and money to Ukraine. Russia has also been expelled from international sporting, artistic, and scientific events.
Following the same logic of international condemnation and pursuit of justice, the same measures should be applied to Israel and the United States, and to an even greater extent since Israel’s attacks have been more deadly than Russia’s. Where are the sanctions against them? Where are the plundering of their assets abroad, the expulsion of diplomatic personnel? Where are the weapons shipments to Palestine so they can defend themselves against the invading army and settlers? Where is the support of European armies or those under the umbrella of the UN to directly confront Israel in the face of what seems intolerable? How can Europe and the Western world fail to find it shameful that Israel has been allowed to participate in the 2024 and 2025 political-musical festival of Eurovision or the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, while Russia has been banned from these events?
We must face the reality behind terms like “international law.” There is a clear double standard. The United States and its allies can commit massacres, invade countries, overthrow legitimate governments, support coups d’état, arm terrorist groups, and violate the law without consequence. Meanwhile, countries that threaten United States hegemony, even to a much lesser extent, are branded as messengers of the devil on Earth. Many naive citizens belonging to United States-allied countries play along with the master’s game. They consume the pro-NATO media narrative, with a NATO serving to preserve the United States as the sole power, and prevent the emergence of a new multipolar global order while believing they are defending human rights.
The question is, what face will the West (the billion people in the rich or ex-rich world) present to the rest of the planet to make its moral precepts a principle of binding compliance? This question must be answered while considering what’s happening in Israel (which is far more serious than what has happened in recent decades). It must also be addressed while considering the support of the United States on the one hand and the low profile of the European Union on the other hand. This includes the refusal of some European governments to arrest Netanyahu before a possible visit to their nations, wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, as convicted by the International Criminal Court.
Furthermore, how will we convince the other 7 billion inhabitants of the planet that there is an order based on fair rules and that this isn’t a jungle or the Wild West where the strongest get what they want? We can see a future in which Western rhetoric loses its power to convince and having good weapons will be more important than having good diplomats.
We can’t punish the United States because it currently rules the world, even though its time is running out. Israel doesn’t care about international condemnation or the private citizen groups calling for street demonstrations denouncing abuses of power. It will continue doing whatever it wants. The only way to stop Israel is by force of weapons, not through diplomacy or the law.
Israel, that toxic monster generated by Western powers, represents the savage and aberrant side of what a civilized country is today. Its rulers believe they are untouchable, like gangsters in Chicago during the days of the underworld and Prohibition. But no power hostile to other nations lasts forever, and Zionists should review the history of their people and other countries. Israel will meet its match. Any country that makes enemies of all its neighbors cannot live long. Every innocent Palestinian that Israel is unjustly killing will cost Israel dearly. Although Israel cannot last long due to its actions, it is important that what remains of the West is not pulled down the same drain.
(Translated by the author from the Spanish version “Israel, Estado pirata-terrorista”, 2025, April 9th)
Source: https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/israel-a-pirate-terrorist-state/
