The bombing of the Basque town of Guernica, in Spain, in 1937 “heralded a terrible new age of warfare” that, almost 90 years later, remains graphically notorious as a “wanton man-made holocaust”. Over the last twelve months, Israel has made exceptional progress towards crafting a similar enduring understanding of the hellscape it has created in Gaza.
Guernica
The Spanish Civil War, fought primarily between Republican and Falangist-Fascist forces extended from 1936-1939. General Franco, leading the Falangist bloc, enjoyed powerful external backing from Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, while the Republican side enjoyed less forceful backing from Stalin’s USSR.
According to the LSE historian, Professor Paul Preston, Franco, “frustrated with the slowness of the advance” sought assistance from German airpower to use “terror bombing [on the Basque town of Guernica] to break the morale of the [enemy] civilian population”. The Chief of Staff of the German Condor Legion in Spain was a Prussian aristocrat, Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen – a cousin of the WWI, “Red Baron” air ace, Manfred von Richthofen. The Condor Legion lent conspicuous air power to the Falangists. Wolfram planned “the entire [Guernica] operation as an experiment in terror” and as an instructive, deadly rehearsal for the German use of air power in the anticipated major war with Britain and France.
As Preston explains, Guernica was a small but culturally important Basque town. It was essentially defenceless and, in particular, had no air defences. A crowded market day (April 26, 1937) was chosen for the attack to maximise casualties. New German fire-making incendiary bombs were used to create a fire storm in the town, which had many wooden buildings. The water supplies were bombed first to ensure the fires would spread without hindrance. Residents trying to escape from the town on foot were machine-gunned from lighter, circling aircraft. The toll of dead and injured – from a total population, including market visitors, of around 10,000 – was over 2,500.
Thanks to the courage and determination of journalists covering the incident, and especially George Steer, from The Times, graphic reports of this flagrant terror attack – read with horror worldwide – soon circulated.
Meanwhile, Pablo Picasso had been invited to contribute an artwork to the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. On May 1, after reading Steer’s harrowing report on April 29, Picasso, already appalled by the suffering of Spanish refugees, began work on what would become his most famous painting Guernica. This large, extraordinary black and white painting has conveyed the essential inhuman horror of what happened in Guernica to every generation since. The painting hangs, today, in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.
Gaza
Hamas, the militarised radical political group (widely labelled as a terrorist organisation in the West) has run the Gaza enclave since 2007, after winning a Western-blessed election in 2006, much to the exasperation of Washington.
Over two years ago Gaza was described by Human Rights Watch as: “Israel’s open-air prison”. Gaza has also been described as a: “concentration camp where genocide is taking place“.
On October 7, 2023 a group of Hamas militants broke out of Gaza and launched an extremely violent attack in Southern Israel resulting in the death of around 1,200 (including over 800 civilians) and the taking of over 250 hostages.
Shortly after, France 24 observed that, “It’s payback time. After the unspeakable horrors perpetrated by Hamas, Israel is now in battle formation,” asking, “What does revenge look like?”.
We soon had an answer. Israel’s almost immediately launched a massive, military invasion of Gaza. It was an unambiguously enraged operation from the start. Since it began, the IDF, acting under increasingly rabid political direction, has created a hellscape across all of Gaza involving, colossal levels of deliberate destruction, month after month, of housing and every single aspect of infrastructure including, schools, hospitals and mosques – all of this shamelessly excused by claims to be hunting for Hamas militants.
The conservative estimated death toll, in a population of around 2.5 million, stands at over 40,000 with the majority being women and children. The Lancet credibly estimated, three months ago, that, in fact, a death toll of 186,000 or higher was likely. Oxfam now says that “more women, children have been killed by Israel in Gaza than in any other conflict in two decades”
The number of deliberate, homicidal Israeli attacks on medical workers, aid workers, UN workers and journalists in Gaza is staggeringly high. In the midst of, “destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population’s inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA” (as noted by The Lancet), Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich argued in August that: “No one in the world will allow us to starve 2 million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages.”.
Conclusion
An Australian Jewish writer recently asked: “How can we, the Jewish people, celebrate the coming New Year when these psychopaths ruling Israel are laying the foundations for more hate, more death, more mayhem?.
Here is a sample of further acute commentary on where the maniacal Zionists now in charge have led Israel, especially since their latest unbridled assault on basic human values began in Gaza about a year ago :
- Israel’s ideology of genocide must be confronted and stopped – Jeffrey Sachs
- The path of perpetual occupation and perpetual war is the path Israel is taking -Dalia Dassa Kaye
- Israel is out of control – it has become a kind of lunatic juggernaut – Norman Finkelstein
In January, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that a plausible case could be made that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. And in July, 2024, the ICJ found that “Israel’s presence in Palestinian territory [including the West Bank] is unlawful”.
Meanwhile, in May, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor advised the ICC that it should issue arrest warrants for war crimes with respect to certain member of Hamas and the Israeli government, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Israel has treated all these international law decisions with unalloyed contempt. More recently, confirming their loathing of any international fact-based commentary which they find unacceptable, Israel has banned the UN Secretary-General from visiting.
Israel has made exceptional progress over the last 12 months in confirming its ranking as a pariah state. Outside of the US-led Global West it is, today, widely recognised as a depraved terrorist state. Chris Hedges argued earlier this year that Israel is a settler-colonial state which has now destroyed itself.
As if to put this scandalous standing beyond any risk of fading, CNN recently reported how Israel has now launched another sickening war (preceded by horrific hi-tech terrorism) against Lebanon and its Hezbollah nemesis, with yet more war promised and its contempt for President Biden re-emphasised.
The comprehensive, homicidal horror Israel has visited on Gaza has not yet prompted a single crystalising artwork like Picasso’s Guernica. But round-the-clock, graphic video coverage is carrying the daily terrorising particulars, visited on over 2 million civilians, into worldwide homes, day after day.
How will the world see what has unfolded in Gaza (and beyond) in 20 or 100 years? There are visibly sound reasons to expect that, over time, Israel’s unyielding terror-blitz in Gaza may come to be understood as equalling or eclipsing the “wanton man-made holocaust” created in Guernica by a repulsive troika of fascist states in 1937. Moreover, the grievous complicity of the US (and its posse of feckless allies) in the Gaza genocide also looks well set to be acutely remembered.
Richard Cullen is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. He was previously a Professor in the Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.