The Normalization of Violence

Israeli fire brigade teams douse the blaze in a parking lot outside a residential building following a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, on Oct. 7, 2023. Palestinian militants have begun a "war" against Israel, the country's defense minister said on Oct. 7 after a barrage of rockets were fired and fighters from the Palestinian enclave infiltrated Israel, a major escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

The unprecedented attack on Israel, to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded with airstrikes and a declaration of war on Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group, is the latest flare-up of what is becoming a global normalization of extreme violence.

Russia’s war on Ukraine. China’s violent threats, or worse, against Japan, India, the Philippines, and Vietnam. North Korea’s threats of nuclear war against the United States and South Korea. Venezuela’s weaponization of refugees against our southern border. Peru’s plans for what will likely become a Chinese naval base. Cuba’s plans to host a Chinese listening station. Iran’s support for the latest surprise attack on Israel was reportedly confirmed by Hamas and Hezbollah, another terrorist group.

“Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group,” writes Summer Said, Benoit Faucon, and Stephen Kalin in The Wall Street Journal.

“Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions—the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War—those people said.”

Iran’s involvement with Hamas is by now expected but still reprehensible. The vile ferocity of the attacks and brazenness of members of the involved terrorist groups immediately admitting to Iran’s alleged involvement is as inscrutable as it is horrific. Their casual neglect for human life, of young people celebrating peacefully at a music festival, is beyond words.

Militarism, threats, and violence are so commonplace among Iran, China, Russia, and North Korea now that one’s eyes begin to glaze over at the latest atrocities. That arguably racist normalization of violence and hate for the West, including Israel, portends ill for the future, especially in an era of hypersonic nuclear missiles, genetically-modified viruses, and military artificial intelligence. The responsibility lies with these rogue nations, as well as the United States, Europe, and all G7 countries for not stopping their racialized hatred and violence more quickly, when the rogues began making threats almost as soon as the Cold War was over.

There is a pattern beyond racism in the current maelstrom, unfortunately. All of the worst antagonists have links to China. Hamas is supported by Iran, and Iran is supported by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). That parallels the Taliban in Afghanistan, whom Pakistani intelligence and security elements supported during the war. The Pakistani government is, in turn, heavily supported by Beijing.

The CCP is arguably a terrorist group, though the world’s largest corporations in the United States and Europe make so much money in China and give so many campaign donations that even our politicians have been relatively silent given the threat. The CCP regularly supports terrorism around the world, including of the state variety, to destabilize existing political systems such that it can make inroads through political influence operations and debt-trap diplomacy.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping likely supported Russia’s attack on Ukraine before it started. His Beijing meeting with Vladimir Putin just before the onslaught, and after the Crimea invasion, included a major gas deal that insulated Moscow from sanctions expected from its next planned attack—on Kyiv. North Korea’s nuclear program is heavily supported by the CCP. One of Venezuela’s strongest international supporters is China. Beijing responded to the latest attacks on Israel, not with condemnation, but with a call for a “two-state solution,” which gives a pass to the violence of Hamas and would be a loss to America’s ally, Israel.

After the attacks, as with prior such attacks throughout history, the Palestinians will likely lose even more control of their lands and freedoms. If Iran is pulling the strings of Hamas or supplying them with weapons, which we have every reason to suspect, it is an incredibly sinister strategy without due care for the Palestinians, who are sure to bear the brunt of retaliation.

The latest attack on Israel has killed over 1,000 Israelis already. Tens of thousands of Palestinians will likely die if past Hamas attacks and the Israeli response are any indication.

The CCP and its allies worldwide stoke local grievances to increase instability for the United States and our allies. Israel and Saudi Arabia were about to sign a peace agreement that would likely have included improvements for Palestinians and would even have included more oil pumped by the Saudis, which would lower the price of gas in the United States. The deal was about to be a beautiful win for sanity in the Middle East. But, at least for a time, the latest attacks will destroy that diplomatic progress.

The United States, Israel, and allies must find a way to decrease the power of Hamas, Iran, CCP, and other rogue entities from imposing their destructive authoritarian ideologies on innocents around the world. Unfortunately, as their violence becomes normalized, the United States and other G7 countries revert to seeing it as banal. That will only make what the philosopher Hannah Arendt called “evil” spread further throughout our previously relatively peaceful—for a time in the 1990s—international systems.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.