This is complicity, with obvious consequences

The lies have now become so monstrous and the known body count so high that no one can honestly say that they didn’t know. 

Palestinians died yesterday, they will die today and again tomorrow. 

And they die because they are Palestinians caught in the crosshairs of western political and military power agendas.  Having endured over three-quarters of a century of oppression and occupation, they die because they are, once again, in the wrong place at the wrong time at the mercy of the wrong people.

The world knows this, declares it to be unbearable and unconscionable yet somehow always contrives to find a justification to delay or avoid doing what it knows must be done.

“Soon” we will act but not yesterday, today or even tomorrow. 

First off, we blame the Palestinians for their own fate. If the atrocities committed by Hamas and others on October 7 had not happened, then all would be well.  If the Palestinians had not voted in numbers for Hamas, then none of this would have come to pass.  If Palestinian men and women were not current or potential combatants, if Palestinian women were not current or potential mothers and if children were not current or potential opponents, then this killing would be unnecessary.

If only Palestinians were not Palestinians…

We blame everything on the crimes committed on October 7^. They are the “original” sins, nothing else counts.  Nothing done by the Israeli state or army, nothing done by Israeli settlers, nothing done by Israeli proxy armies or networks.  The individual, collective or structural violence done to Palestinians over decades is of no relevance in the quest for revenge…control…power…land. 

Equating Gazans with Hamas, the individual and collective guilt of all Palestinians justifies everything. 

From the outset, the killers and their supporters have insisted that the numbers killed, maimed, buried, starved and forcibly displaced have been exaggerated.  So too the direct and targeted attacks on hospitals, ambulances and medics, on schools, mosques, energy, water supplies  and agriculture and all the basics of life. 

Don’t believe them, believe us – it’s not really that bad…or so they would have us believe.  Yet, we know we have not even begun to calculate the true cost of this campaign of ethnic cleansing.

The mantra from the world’s “leaders” - Israel has the right to defend itself.  Every statement about the scale and impact of the killing and the starvation is prefaced or concluded with that mantra.  Not a word about any of the recognised legal and moral limitations to that right.  Necessity (repelling a specific attack, not a general threat), proportionality (force should be limited and measured) and immediacy (self-defence does not mean indefinite counterattack). 

In the eyes and consciences of the apologists, Israel’s right to self-defence is absolute and unrestricted and therefore…

Why never a word on Palestine’s corresponding right?  To even discuss or debate such issues is immediately declared antisemitic.  The calculated cruelty and hypocrisy is monumental.

Those who do not act (individually or collectively) without delay to stop this genocide (eventually this will be the accepted verdict) and these violations of international law are complicit.  Hiding behind claims of timing, “behind the scenes” diplomacy or the bullying and aggression of the White House is no defense. 

Despite a legal obligation to do so, the institutions and leaders of the EU refuse to act, even in a minimalist manner, thus condemning yet more Palestinians as well as undermining the Union itself.  Refusing to sanction Israel and, in particular its leaders is complicity.  Complicity with very obvious consequences.

The EU has many options for action, including the suspension of its association agreement with Israel, denying arms deliveries, banning imports from illegal settlements, sanctioning ministers and political leaders (most especially those advocating ethnic cleansing and genocide) and proactively supporting judges of the International Criminal Court, UN officials and rapporteurs sanctioned by the Trump regime. 

Meanwhile, the battle for hearts and minds continues accompanied by a campaign of the dehumanisation of Palestinians so the strategic objectives of Netanyahu, other Israeli individuals and movements and Trump can be advanced.  It is also accompanied by a campaign designed to desensitise us to what is clearly underway – the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank. 

Resisting those campaigns of desensitisation and dehumanisation (even here in commentary in this paper) is our minimum moral duty towards Palestinians but also towards Israelis and ourselves. 

When the worst of what is currently happening is finally behind us, let us be judged for what we did, not for what we did not do.