The illegal abduction of the crew of the Madleen by the genocidal state of Israel is certainly demoralizing. But it isn’t surprising to anyone and certainly not this courageous group of people. Israel is conducting the first livestreamed genocide. Day by day it descends even further into the pit of sadistic barbarism. Yet even as its atrocities and war crimes mount for all the world to see, it cannot help but claim victimhood.

Case in point, Israel’s defense minister ordered the kidnapped crew to be shown a heavily curated and guarded film of the October 7th attacks. He also repeated the ridiculous lie that Greta Thunberg is “antisemitic” and supports Hamas.

To be sure, Israel isn’t on some moral crusade against antisemitism or terrorism. But it has weaponized antisemitism to attack any critic of the regime or of the political ideology of Zionism. And it attempts to smear them as terrorists because that has become the catch-all term used by despotic and ruthless regimes all over the world against anyone who dissents.

No person of conscience supports indiscriminate violence against civilians and certainly not against children. But Israel is in a bind of its own making if it thinks it can shame the crew of the Madleen by forcing them to watch a film that cannot be viewed or verified by any independent body.

After watching 19 months of unhinged and vicious cruelty meted out on millions of people in the world’s biggest concentration camp, Israel still thinks it can garner sympathy. Even after it has bombed, burned alive and starved thousands of children. Even after it has killed its own citizens. Even after its soldiers have proudly posted themselves parading around in lingerie or smashing toys of women and children they had forced out of their homes or massacred. Even after it has bombed hospitals and murdered doctors and paramedics. Even after it has tortured captives. Even after countless statements of genocidal intent by its politicians and media figures.

But this is all Israel knows how to do. It only has one story. And it has spent the last 77 years polishing its brand of perpetual victimhood even as it ethnically cleansed the land and built an apartheid state that rivaled South Africa. It has repeated this fiction that it is the “villa in the jungle” and the Middle-East’s “only democracy” so much that it began to believe it was true. But despite its delusion, the mask has slipped for the world to see. And no amount of storytelling will convince anyone but the willfully ignorant, terminally stupid or psychotically deranged.

Kenn Orphan, June 2025