Unfathomable cruelty – rebellion is essential
JVL Introduction
In another powerful, moving and excoriating piece, Nesrine Malik sums up hard lessons we must learn from the last year witnessing the murderous pulverisation of Gaza; protesting and getting the World Courts to recognise at least the feasibility of a genocide being carried out and yet still it continues. We are certainly learning that “might is right” and also that we must carry on carrying on in standing for justice; an end to occupation and to genocide.
Malik spent time in the West Bank and was horrified by what she saw and, together with the atrocities in Gaza, Malik says: “What Israel is confronting the world with now is not the knowledge that the system is broken, but that it is working precisely as designed. And that design is one where the self-interested calculations of the imperial powers and their allies are all that matters.”
As she goes on to say: “there can be no accommodation with what is happening” and that the regimes that enable this must be rebelled against.
LL
This article was originally published by Guardian on Mon 28 Oct 2024. Read the original here.
The lesson of Israel’s unfathomably cruel war: ours is still a world where might is right
All the protests and legalistic wins have been rendered meaningless by the relentless assault on north Gaza
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It’s Israel’s horrific slaughter of about 200,000 Palestinians (one in 20 of the whole population of Gaza) that weighs on me most heaviIy; but we also need to remember the much smaller cost in Israeli lives cut short, maimed and seemingly misreported.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapide speaking to Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 said Israel’s real casualty figures over the last year is “Eleven thousand soldiers were injured and 890 others killed”. He said the casualty rate is lied about by the government and is rising daily. The figures Lapide quotes are considerably higher than those I’ve previously heard – and he told his audience how they could fact-check them.
This disgusting, unending carnage must be stopped. For the first time I remember during this horrible year even the BBC (R4) has carried an extended interview by their chosen authority (Martin Griffiths, ex UN) saying arms supplies to Israel MUST end completely and end now.
There is a note close to despair in this piece. The journalist who’s lost for words; the philosopher who can’t fathom the thinking-process; the humanist who is faced with human actions that don’t remotely correspond to what used to be understood by the term.
It’s not just the violence and the cruelty; they are common enough, especially in war. It’s the bravado, the pride, the complete absence of shame or regret. The writer uses the term “celebratory” and that will do for now.
That’s what it’s come to.