.
It is dangerous, wrong and a tactic of heinous propaganda to call the ongoing industrial slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza ‘the Israel-Hamas war’.
Gaza is an open air prison, a small strip of land blockaded for 16 years by land, sea and air. Gaza is a massive hostage holding pen in which 80% are forced to rely on humanitarian aid that Israel can (and has) unilaterally block(ed) at any moment.
Israel’s blockade of Gaza forms part of an overarching policy of invasion, occupation, brutality and apartheid. Israel has created in Gaza the largest concentration camp in history. Any show of defiance by Palestinians within it has been met with Israeli bullets with which they have murdered unarmed peaceful protestors, paramedics, journalists, women and children. Israel routinely arrests Palestinians without charge and has detained and abused children both physically and sexually.
The attack by Hamas on the 7th of October (rightfully condemned across the world) was not an act of war by Gaza – it was a brief and bloody prison break out.
Conflating Gaza with Hamas (as The Guardian and the BBC etc are at pains to do) allows the west and Israel to treat an entire civilian population of mostly women and children as terrorists and to smear all who protest against Israel’s actions as terrorist sympathisers.
This gaslighting allows media outlets and western politicians to reframe fascist atrocities as collateral damage. They use the lexicon of war to dishonestly reframe this genocide against Palestinians because they know that opposing Israel is career suicide.
So with calls for ‘restraint’, ‘cease fire’ and ‘within international law’ – phrases that do not apply to the industrial slaughter of a captive civilian population, people like Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak and Leo Varadkar dodge their clear responsibility to act.
It is both venal and morally bankrupt for politicians to emphasise ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’ while that nation commits crimes against humanity from a position of total military superiority and safety.
This is why the Israeli massacre at the Ahli al-Arabi hospital had to be hastily covered up by Israel in collusion with the western media – they feared losing control of the narrative and the true context of Gaza emerging.
Using this conflation between Hamas and Gaza, Israeli fascists have stated their plans in plain sight, saying it has changed its policies from those of ‘containment to eradication’ that it will turn Gaza into a ‘city of tents’, that nuclear weapons should be dropped on Gaza, that it will lose territory , that Palestinians are human animals for which Israel has no moral responsibility and saying that there is no such thing as the Palestinian people.
Israeli intentions are clear – they intend to commit a punishment genocide on the Palestinian race for the ‘crime’ of impeding Zionism and western colonial expediency. Then they will annex Gaza just as they annexed the West Bank. The idea that this can be done ‘within international law’ is obviously a sick joke and is deployed to give Israel and the west a moral fig leaf to hide behind.
The only thing that may yet save the Gazans from sharing the fate of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the Bosniak Muslims in Srebrenica and yes the Jews in Nazi Germany, is western public opinion.
The Guardian, BBC and the western political establishment have chosen to shield Israel from all all moral scrutiny at this time. History will duly record their infamy and share of responsibility for what happens next. Those in charge of aiding and amplifying U.S. and Israeli lies at this time, should be tried for crimes against humanity when all the bloodshed is finally over.
It has never been more important that people of good character confront the lies of the western media. Gaza is not a war, it is an Israeli massacre of innocents – a massacre with thousands of victims already and one that left unchecked may kill hundreds of thousands more.
If we don’t protest, if we don’t speak out, then we must meekly accept our role in an evil cradling that led to genocide and also our ongoing place within a death cult of lies and denial.
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