Israel and the limits of ‘nkali’

What Israel is doing in the Middle East is more than just fighting to stay alive. It has passed that peak. What Israel is doing is showing them nkali. The trouble with nkali is that it has limitations. If you defeat an enemy, they typically walk away and lick their wounds. But if you show your enemy nkali, they always return to fight again. But that is not what is dangerous about it. Because of the nkali, today’s enemy vows to measure up not just to fight and win but to wipe away the shame that nkali splashes on the face of its victims.

Before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to the UN to speak, I assessed what he was doing in Gaza, the West Bank, and the surrounding environment as not different from what Moses and Joshua and other prophets of Judaism did in the Bible. When in his speech, he referred to Moses in his UN General Assembly speech; I knew he knew what he was doing. The Bible depicted God as the power behind the Israeli wars. In our time, God is the United States of America. It makes the law, changes it, and enforces it at will. As it did to God in the beginning, Israel still chooses when to obey and ignore America.

Netanyahu is doing what his forbearers did. In the last 2000 years, what dividend has this nkali brought to Israelis besides wars, expulsions, and exoduses? And the worst characteristic of nkali is that it is not a permanent state. No empire has maintained a state of nkali forever. Eventually, the inferior one today becomes superior tomorrow. And when he remembers the nkali, it triggers revenge. And the circle of violence continues.

The way nature does not accept a vacuum, it does not entertain a lopsided power structure forever. It balances it. That is why nkali does not last forever. Nkali ultimately withers like the penis in a refractory period.

Nothing justified the terror Hamas rained on innocent Israelis on October 7, 2023. At the same time, nothing justifies what Israel is doing in retaliation. October 7 is not a justification for the use of starvation as a weapon of war, the disregard of the Geneva Convention and all the international treaties as it regards prosecuting a war.

If you must reply evil with evil, be bold enough to say you are just as evil as your enemy. Own it. Don’t rationalise or justify it. It is okay to be as evil as your enemy. You can even surpass them in evil. It is within your rights. But don’t insult our intelligence by making it appear as if your evil is less cruel. Don’t invoke a higher moral ground or claim that you are fighting for our civilization when you are deploying the primitive tools humans have used all through history.

Nietzsche noted, “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” Human development has never followed a straight line. We often go in a zigzag form. We understand. Now and then, we have enough of our humankind ready to reopen the gates of hell we thought we had closed.

I never fail to remind myself that if Israel can do it, so can Russia. If Israel can do it and justify it, so can Nigeria. Who knows how long it will take before Nigeria does the same thing Israel is doing in the Middle East to those who are fighting for a Yoruba nation? If I cannot defend what Nigeria did during the Biafran-Nigerian Civil War, I cannot defend what Israel is doing now in the Middle East.

Nkali is sweet to the benefactors. It sparks cheers and wanton justification. Luckily for us, time surpasses nkali.

Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo teaches post-colonial African history, Afrodiasporan Literature, and African folktales at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is also the host of Dr Damages Show. His books include “This American Life Sef” and “Children of a Retired God,” among others. His upcoming book is called “Why I’m Disappointed in Jesus.”