Israel’s Iconoclastic Moment

The world is witnessing an iconoclastic moment whereby Israel’s image constructed since WWII as a Western, democratic, and moral state is shattered in real-time. This is not to imply that Israel was moral or democratic toward the Palestinians from its inception; rather, the expertly nurtured image with concentric circles of reinforcement across the globe has come crashing down in the post-October 7th revengeful response. Certainly, Israel’s image managers have been experiencing a steady erosion in the country’s standing abroad, accelerated after the 2014 attacks on Gaza,but the current moment is totally different and irreversible. Yet, the current moment is iconoclastic, with far-reaching consequences that no one can fully grasp.

What do I mean by the iconoclastic moment?

Webster’s Dictionary defines the term as follows: “Iconoclast comes from the Greek word eikonoklastēs, which translates literally as “image destroyer.” While the destruction wrought by today’s iconoclasts is figurative — in modern use, an iconoclast is someone who criticizes or opposes beliefs and practices that are widely accepted — the first iconoclasts directed their ire at religious icons, those representations of sacred individuals used as objects of veneration. The Byzantine Empire’s Iconoclastic Controversy occurred in the 8th and 9th centuries, but the word iconoclast didn’t find its way to English until the 17th century. Figurative use came later still.”

The total collapse of Israel’s image is an iconoclastic event that navigates both the religious-spiritual and secular topography of meaning. Israel is posited as a religious story of an ancient promise that was fulfilled by returning to the “promised land” after prolonged exile. A secular with the notion that Israel is a successful formation of a modern nation-state that has developed top-tier institutions, economy, military, and society (for Jewish members of the state, and Apartheid is not the main element in this essay). The crafting of Israel’s image was very critical to concealing the settler colonial history of the state and also to rally support among Western states post-WWII.

Israel’s image and standing in the Western world is paramount for every government since the founding of the state because of the massive levels of economic, military, and political support needed to maintain a settler colonial project in the heart of the Arab and Muslim world. Even though the Western world has maintained a colonial epistemic in the postcolonial era, appearing or projecting a moral and ethical purpose is essential for utilizing soft power discourses and a favorable international law system to maintain the status quo.

Israel worked hard to construct an ideal, morally and religiously centered public image that functioned as a modern nation-state idol with multilayered shields to repulse all attacks. Added to this “positive” public relations idol, Israel worked on projecting a negative, subhuman, and demonic image of the Palestinians. The duality of good and evil, Israelis and Palestinians, reinforced the iconic projection of the modern state project while navigating and communicating a religiously intended framing for the Western Christian world. Israel was not a mere modern nation-state but a fulfillment of religious purpose connected to the epistemic heart of the Western Judeo-Christian tradition (Eastern Christians or Palestinian Christians are intentionally excluded and marginalized in this project).

At the core of Israel’s public relations and positioning of the state on the world stage is the assertion that the state is an affirmation of the redemptive power after a prolonged period of torment, pain, and suffering. Never Again is a powerful statement speaking to overcoming and taking ownership of the redemptive power from the painful past while, at the same time, making profound moral and ethical claims on the future. Despite overwhelming contradictions in the public relations edifice, Israel successfully navigated this powerful terrain from 1948 up to the early 1990s.

Cracks in Israel’s shield began to appear in the first Intifada, but more damage occurred in the post-Oslo era as the rising tide of extreme and militant Zionism led by Netanyahu culminated in the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. From that point forward, Israel’s image was maintained by massive spending across all markets, interfaith washing, utilization of Islamophobia, silencing oppositions, and positioning itself as an expert state in fighting terrorism.

Gone are all the claims for the moral, ethical, democratic, or redemptive power represented by the birth of the modern Zionist state in Palestine. Israel entered the terrain occupied by all other states and functioned within the scope of national self-interest. Justifications abound, but at the core of this shift is that the early cracks became so widely recognizable that no amount of spending and shifting of blame can cover it up. A second and just as important factor is the collapse of the US and Western European standing post-Iraq war and the fabrication and lies connected to it. Remind the reader that Israel, Netanyahu, and all the mainstream media acted in unison to push for the Iraq war, which was followed by numerous disasters in the region that rightly belong to all who cheered on and justified it at every turn.

Not wanting to narrate all the historical events since the early 1990s; however, every Israeli assault on Gaza and the West Bank came at the expense of the well-crafted image. Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza, and 2021 assault on the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan, which was followed by a brutal and cruel bombing campaign on Gaza, affixed a negative image like never before on the country and all its government personalities. Closing and censoring social media posts, targeting individuals, getting Canary Mission going, and blaming SJP, AMP, JVP, or others are mistaken symptoms for the cause. Here, I am not implying that critical organizing has occurred in the past 30-plus years, it did, but the collapse of Israel’s public standing is, first and foremost, an outcome of its own making. Israel does not see or witness the Palestinians, as it can only see its power, the power to settle in the West Bank, and the power of its allies!

The arrival of the iconoclastic moment, both in the religious-spiritual and metaphorical senses, is a direct outcome of a global audience witnessing an Israeli live-streamed genocide in real time. With every bomb Israel has dropped on an apartment building, hospital, school, mosque, or church, the outcome was destruction in Gaza, but it was concurrently an iconoclastic obliteration of Israel’s standing across the globe. The physical destruction of Gaza resulted in an internal iconoclastic demolition of the last remnants of Israel’s well-crafted public image in the hearts and minds of people across the globe. Indeed, the iconoclastic moment is both religious, considering the heavy biblical discourses utilized to stitch Israel into the global and Western Christian imaginary, and secular in the banality of power on display with revengeful devastation visited upon Gaza.

Bombing a civilian population in Gaza and the streaming of hundreds if not thousands of images and videos of dead babies, women, and children with utter devastation on the landscape created a singular iconoclastic moment for the world population like never before. Adding to this is the total disregard for anything resembling facts or fairness by Israel’s political and military leadership in representing events, which compounded the iconoclastic moment. Even propaganda has to have some resemblance to reality or connection to factual records, which Israel is no longer able to keep the storyline straight, be it attacks on hospitals and schools or the visibility of death all across Gaza. Added to this iconoclastic moment is a cast of characters in the Israeli government that insist on using genocidal and dehumanizing language and possibly mistake the political support among elites in the West and Arab world for the righteousness of their cause or claims.

The iconoclastic events and moments, like the one underway, are collective and public mass events that the political establishment or mainstream media talking heads are powerless to halt and ill-equipped to reverse. The millions of people out in the streets across the globe, including in the heart of the Western world, are a direct outcome of Israel’s iconoclastic moment. The more that Israel’s bombing of Gaza and the visible destruction visited upon the Palestinians continues, the more accelerated the public response will be to the unfolding genocide. What makes this possible is that the iconoclastic moment has managed to obliterate not only the metaphoric idol that is Israel but also the fear connected to it. From this moment forward, Israel has entered a new era of permanent negative standing, genocide charges and war crimes pursuit-no amount of PR spending or elite civil society voices can reverse it.