Human Rights, especially Universal Human Rights, express an aspiration, deeply rooted in enlightenment thinking, that expressing an ideal that any reasonable being would unconditionally support, can actually be realized as an assertion of a collective will. In this ideal world, all humans have the same basic rights. This is at the heart of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly on the 10th of December 1948, exactly 210 days after the start of the Nakba in Palestine.
The UDHR was a reaction to the Shoah. It was attempt to develop a legal assurance of the “Never Again” that was proclaimed after the discovery of the genocide of Jews by the Nazis between 1941 and 1945. On the 14th of May 1948, Ben Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel, which – according to Zionist ideology – is also an attempt to ensure that the Shoah will never happen again, this time not in terms of the establishment of international law, but instead by the establishment of a “sovereign ethno-national state”, that can act as a law onto itself. It should be clear that the latter had very little to do with a universal notion of “Never Again”, but was limited to “Never Again exclusively for Jews”. Hence the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes was not considered an issue.
Referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as a fundamental, and not an incidental, aspect of Zionism should not be controversial, since this had been proclaimed by Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of the Revisionist Zionist Movement. In his 1923 book The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs), he made it very clear that the Jewish state can only exist with a Jewish majority. He openly admitted that this would not be possible without (some) violence. The leading party that were to form Likud, namely Herut, was a direct successor to this political movement. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that the establishment of the Zionist state in 1948 required ethnic cleansing.
Thus, we have two versions of Never Again: One that sought to actualize an ideal of Universal Human Rights and one that sought to establish a non-universal, ethno-national sovereign state through the deployment of violence. Logically and without any normative specification, we can thereby conclude that the Zionist assertion of “the State of Israel’s Right to Exist” contradicts the idealist foundations of UDHR, because that would prioritize the right of human beings such as the Palestinian people to exist. Of course, there could have been different conceptions of the State of Israel that do not require a Jewish majority. These however are contradictory to the Zionist aspirations.
This short introduction into what appears to be a contradiction in International Law refers to an acute issue in contemporary world politics, that is, however at the same time almost 80 years old. The actions of Israel and its allies have made it very clear that the UDHR should not be taken very seriously; its aspirations have been exposed as idealist fantasies by the Realpolitik of Staatsräson. There are too many geopolitical, military as well as financial-economic interests involved in the Zionist project for the West to start advocating an idealist agenda. At best, International Law is something western nations deploy when it serves their interests and the UDHR is merely a façade required to legitimate self-interests.
This is why we should perhaps accept as fact – and not as a prophecy of doom – that we have already entered a post-apocalyptic world. Unlike many dystopic novels and films, however, this post-apocalyptic world does not exist of deserts and ruins; and it does not require the majority of its inhabitants to be aware of it. Existence after Revelation does not mean that everyone suddenly has been given the gift of sight. In fact, it is perhaps even more affirmative of the post-apocalyptic condition, that the majority of those affected by it, consider it fairly normal and carry on their pursuit of banal distractions.
The complete collapse of international law that enabled and justified the genocide in Gaza is in fact an example of History repeating itself as tragedy and as farce. The tragedy of unspeakable crimes against humanitiy is being doubled down by the farcical autoeroticism of hasbara trolls. This is why the term post-apocalypse is highly appropriate. There is a clear split between those who still recognize their humanity in the suffering of others and those who orgiastically celebrate their own sadistic brutality like zombies feasting on the brains of the living. The zombification of humanity finds its zenith in Zionist apologetics. In many western countries, those who oppose genocide are criminalized, whereas those who commit it are celebrated.
A very specific modality of this post-apocalyptic condition is “gaslighting”. For example, hasbara relentlessly proclaims that bombing hospitals and antenatal wards, sniping children lining up at food distribution points, starving civilian populations are necessary acts in the fight against terrorism. It thereby obviously misses the point, that these actions are far worse than actions of terrorism. Unlike acts of terrorism, which are incidental, haphazard and intended to affect the living, the acts performed in the name of Zionism are intended to destroy an entire population, to such an extent, that they can no longer exist on that land. By accepting hasbara as truth, mainstream media and political parties actively pursue the zombification of the public sphere.
Gaslighting is the denial of revelation, the denial of the apocalypse and therefore the denial of the world we live in. Therefore it is fundamental to the post-apocalyptic condition. It is therefore not correct to refer to the current times as apocalyptic, despite the fact that the four riders of the apocalypse are roaming freely, simply because the vested interests that are being revealed, are also being denied post-hoc. That is exactly what gaslighting refers to: the reality you have experienced, the suffering you have felt, is not real, it is merely a phantasm, generated by your own distorted mind-set. The name for this distorted mind-set is also known: antisemitism.
Gaslighting is the accomplishment of the negative dialectics of the enlightenment: when culture industries have completely transformed the public sphere into a spectacle of entertainment. However, the post-apocalyptic condition is not exclusively produced by gaslighting. In fact, one of the most remarkable revelations of the consequences of the genocide in Gaza has been the growing rift between – on the one hand – the pro-Israel elites, including networks of child sex abuse and thuggish militia, and – on the other hand – an overwhelming majority of ordinary people who refuse to be gaslighted and recognize human suffering as such. Is it not the case that the voices supporting the genocide in Gaza (often also denying that it is a genocide) are very vociferous and dominate mainstream media and mainstream politics? Is it not the case that the most extreme right wing political movements also support Israel, usually by saying aloud what mainstream media and politics implicate: a hatred of Muslims and Arabs? And is it not the case that those closely implicated in the child abuse networks surrounding Jeffrey Epstein are also staunch supporters of the Zionist project?
In the post-apocalyptic world, the majority of people are not engaged in child sex abuse. The prevalence of systematic child sex abuse is much higher amongst elites, because they can protect themselves much better against incidental exposures. It is for this reason, that a critical post-apocalyptic sociology should not treat child sex abuse as an anomaly. It is endemic in the lives of those who perceive themselves to be above the law, for those who are capable of gaslighting so that human suffering becomes a source of pleasure. Those who can sexually abuse a child will also feel very little empathy for a Palestinian child being blown into smithereens. Those who want to believe hasbara and take pleasure in spreading it, are morally speaking no better than those who hung out with Jeffrey Epstein.
The post-apocalyptic world is completely inundated in organized and legalized corruption, as those who make the rules are its direct beneficiaries. This is a form of totalitarianism that enlightenment thinkers assumed was impossible, because it is so blatantly unreasonable. Yet, it does not take a seasoned investigative journalist to follow the trails of money between political decision-making and legislation, organized lobbying, financial investments (by large asset managers), the discursive framing of news-reporting as entertainment and – of course – the exponential accumulation of wealth by a very small proportion of the population.
Disaffected Sociology 
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