Afrasianet - Dr. Marwan Ghafouri - In his 1988 book, "The Collapse of Civilization: Thinking After the Holocaust," German-Jewish historian Dan Diener coined the term "collapse of civilization" (Zivilisationsbruch) as a historical concept referring to events that radically undermine civilizational norms and shake our belief in humanity, law, and morality. 

He took the Holocaust as an example of civilizational collapse, concluding that it was a unique and unrepeatable event in history. Dan Diener does not see the Palestinian tragedy, including the genocide in Gaza, as a collapse of civilizational values, let alone a possible comparison to the Holocaust. 

For him, the conflict in the Middle East must be understood within a national and geopolitical context. Any attempt to draw a parallel between what is happening to the Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli state apparatus and what happened to the Jews in the twentieth century is, in Diner's estimation, "immoral." In fact, the word "massacre" is used when referring to Gaza to refer to what happened on October 7, 2023. 

The concept developed by Diner has gained a place in cultural and even literary studies, and there is an implicit agreement in Western academia that human civilizational values have collapsed only once: in relation to the Jewish Question during World War II. 

That war, with its comprehensive undermining, does not rise to the level of being considered a collapse of civilization. It was a destructive battle in a civilizational context that taught Westerners an important lesson: Don't do it again (Nie Wieder). 

This is a word, or lesson, usually said in connection with the Israeli state project. Another massacre, or even destructive wars, are possible, provided they do not harm Judaism. 

An analysis of German political discourse, for example, cannot take the issue of "historical lessons" far from this conclusion. Comparing what is currently happening in Gaza to the Jewish tragedy is a risky business. In his book, "Hope Never Disappoints: Pilgrims on Their Way to a Better World," published earlier this year, the Pope, the spiritual leader of nearly one and a half billion Catholic Christians, dared to say that what is happening in Gaza requires a comprehensive legal investigation, as it may have amounted to genocide. 

Pope Francis did not assert that Gaza is subject to genocide, but his inclusion of genocide in the context of an Israeli action is a red line. It was noticeable that his recent illness, which confined him to the hospital for a time, did not receive the attention it deserves for papal affairs. Indeed, one could say that he was being ignored even as he approached his nineties. 

It is neither an exaggeration nor hasty to link this Western "media" disregard for the Palestinian issue to what his book contains. It is as if Western Christians—take Germany for example—were prepared to demolish their homes just to confirm to themselves and the rest of the world that they had learned the historical lesson. 

Condemning Israeli military action in the manner of the Pope, i.e., linking it to genocide, could pose a threat to the existence of the State of Israel, as Austrian theologian Gregor Maria Hoff argues. 

Western democratic institutions place Israel in a red theological bubble, the most important element in the world extending from Canada to Moscow, and it should not be touched. 

Even at the height of the communist-capitalist Western conflict, Moscow and Washington remained loyal sponsors of the Israeli project. The Soviet Union even preceded its American rival in recognizing the State of Israel. 

In "Secret Negotiations between the Arabs and Israel," Heikal recounts his unique experience with the founding fathers of the Fatah movement. Heikal suggested to Abdel Nasser that he accompany Arafat on his visit to Moscow in August 1968, to present the organization as a national liberation movement for the Palestinian people, deserving of support from the Soviet leadership. 

The Soviets had a special apparatus under the supervision of "Comrade Mazarov" responsible for supporting national liberation movements worldwide. Through a surprising, unofficial ploy, Abdel Nasser was able to introduce Arafat to President Brezhnev, who referred him to Comrade Mazarov without even addressing him directly and ignoring his face. 

For more than two hours, as Heikal recounts, Mazarov interrogated the Palestinian leader about his group's position on Israel's future and the international resolutions granting it the right to the greater part of Palestine. 

Weeks later, the Palestinian leaders received a small shipment of weapons that bore more political significance than military significance. This would not have happened had some Palestinian nationalist groups not converted to Marxism, Heikal claims. Israel's presence in all calculations remains outside the realm of calculations. 

It is interesting to note that a large portion of Russian Jews moved to Palestine, including nearly a million individuals, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that a large portion of Western European Jews moved to America. Matters eventually escalated to the point where American Jews became an influential political and financial force, aiming to push the United States to provide unlimited support to the State of Israel, whose white population was predominantly "Soviet Jews." Judaism bridged the vast gap between the two conflicting worlds.

The Gaza issue has sparked a culture war within the West at various cognitive, cultural, and academic levels. While European democracy has dealt with "red lines" calmly, such as the loss of jobs for journalists and academics who criticize the aggression on Gaza, the Trump regime has imposed a language code in federal correspondence that excludes the word "Palestine" and has demanded that the Middle East Studies Department at Columbia University be placed under the supervision of security forces. Moreover, the criminalization of any student activity condemning the actions of the Israeli army, in its brazenness and illegality, represents a dangerous erosion of the most important moral principles upon which democracy is based: freedom of thought and freedom of expression. 

The case of Mahmoud Khalil, who led a student activity in support of Gaza and was issued a deportation order, has become similar to the story of the Jewish-French officer Dreyfus, who was accused of spying for the German army in the last decade of the nineteenth century. 

Academia can choose its topics to discuss, and so can culture. However, in a democratic context, this ability is governed by what Chomsky called the "framework of discourse" or the "consensus factory." 

This means freedom of movement and expression within a predetermined framework. The definition here is moral, philosophical, and even linguistic.

The framework related to the Israeli issue does not permit the use of certain linguistic codes such as the Holocaust and genocide, nor even the borrowing of the term "Nakba." Within the liberal system, freedom of expression, including academic expression, appears limited and narrow in a way not much different from its counterpart in the "illiberal" world. 

In 1900, Stanford University decided to expel the famous sociologist Edward Ross because of his writings criticizing the actions and dominance of the American Railroad Company. 

The railroad was spending a lot of money on the university where Mr. Ross taught. The university chose financial endowment over freedom of expression. 

More than a century later, Columbia University, along with a wide range of prestigious universities, chose financial endowment over freedom of expression. 

Within the liberal marketplace, universities are free to offer their academic and intellectual offerings as long as they do not cross the boundaries set by "benevolent" donors. Columbia University found itself facing the reality that if it did not rein in students and faculty, it would immediately lose nearly half a billion dollars in desperately needed funds. 

In December of last year, 2024, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Free Expression (FIRE) released the results of its extensive survey, "Silence in the Classroom." The survey included 55 American academic institutions and nearly 7,000 American academics. 

This is the largest and most important survey of its kind on freedom of expression in academia. One of the striking findings of the study was that 35% of academics had moderated their writings due to fear. 

This percentage is nearly four times the percentage reported by sociologists when they were asked the same question in 1954, during the McCarthy era, known for suppressing all forms of free expression. 

Regarding the Palestinian issue, 70% said they practiced self-censorship. At Harvard University, 84% said it was extremely difficult to have a discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A Columbia University faculty member told FIRE, "You're not afraid of being punished as much as you are of being banned or blacklisted. Everything happens through gossip and collusion." 

Liberalism is a market-based philosophy that commodifies everything, including freedom of expression and individual rights. As the liberal market has become more complex than it was in the 1950s, the liberal values that lie on the margins of the market, such as freedom of expression and a code of individual rights, have become so complex that they are often unimaginable. 

Chomsky caricatured freedom of the press in a telling way. A newspaper lives off advertising as its central source of income, and it cannot claim otherwise. To secure advertising rights, it must convince advertisers that it has a high readership—that is, it has a sufficient audience. 

Ultimately, it sells readers to the advertiser, who then sells the advertiser's merchandise to the readers. Within this utilitarian exchange, it's difficult to imagine the newspaper as a means of conveying the truth. 

It's a bargain between two parties far removed from the values of expression and truth. There's a German proverb that says, "When you read a newspaper, you don't know what's going on in the world, but what's written in the newspaper."

During the two-year war on Gaza, Western journalists on both sides of the Atlantic were seen trembling because a guest used an out-of-character expression, even expelling or insulting the guest. Gaza was a severe test for all moral pretenses in the Global North. With the return of the war on Gaza, freedom of expression has taken its usual path: ignoring. Ignoring, or neglecting, is a genuinely liberal means of avoiding moral confusion. Freedom of expression has no right to harm interests. 

The war on Gaza represents an Israeli interest, and in more ways than one, Israel is a Western project, in both the religious and political senses. 

The horror of the situation in Gaza has surpassed the level noted by the International Court of Justice a year ago when it declared that it constituted genocide in progress. 

Rarely does a Western media outlet dare to explain the collapse of the ceasefire, or even address the fact that Israel killed 150 Palestinian civilians during the truce, in exchange for a comprehensive Palestinian commitment to the terms of the truce. 

Western democratic institutions have turned the narrative on its head, achieving their main goal: deafening silence in the face of a crime of historic proportions, as Owen Jones noted in his Guardian article. I will end this article with Jones's question: "What if everyone who knows that horrific evil is being committed spoke out? Ministers would resign from governments. 

Israel's crimes would dominate newspaper headlines and news bulletins, rightly described as heinous crimes that demand urgent action to stop them. Demands for an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel would become unavoidable. Instead of those who oppose genocide being hounded and vilified, it would be those who are complicit in it who are excluded from public life."