*****
https://nitter.net/paulmasonnews/status/1711614796703858983#m
Oct 10
You wanted a multipolar world? You got it. The Hamas terror attack has triggered war in Gaza, a geopolitical crisis and now – from Sydney to NYC – an anti-Semitism challenge in the West. How to respond? 0/…🧵
1/ Hamas’ offers truce/ negotiations having “achieved its objective”: if so, the objective was to demonstrate proof of concept of an unstoppable pogromist terror, forcing itself (and Iran) back into the power-broking process in the ME region… “talk to us or we do this again”…
2/ Israel in response is signalling its objective is to destroy Hamas. I’ve covered a Gaza war: that’s possible, but only with a land offensive, sustained military occupation, massive loss of civilian life, an existential refugee crisis and ammunition from the USA. So the global community has a stake in the outcome…
3/ Israeli pledges of collective punishment of civilians, switching off electricity and water supply, are disproportionate and breach IHL. It will quickly create a humanitarian crisis at the fence-line in all directions. Ditto reckless bombing of civilian housing...
4/ Israel has a right to defend itself, rescue the hostages, arrest and prosecute Hamas and engage in lawful armed combat with its enemy. But the international community has a right to demand proportionality, restraint, respect for international law, and condemn breaches of it…
5/ A new factor is the intervention of Russian proxies in the West to push long-standing solidarity movements with Palestine into the direction of overtly celebrating Hamas terror. The overlap between pro-Kremlin/anti-Ukraine agitation and pro-Hamas agitation is strong – both on the far left and far right.
6/ Both sides risk miscalculating. Hamas is a death cult in charge of a 2m strong captive population. It does not care what happens to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, many of whom hate Hamas. It is fighting for Iranian geopolitical objectives using racist terror as a weapon….
7/ People claiming the Hamas attack is the “violence of the oppressed” are wrong. It could only achieve victory by triggering mass anti-Semitic unrest in Western countries and/or a regional all-out war that (as Tehran calls for) destroys Israel. Sternhell’s rule applies: take fascists at their word…
8/ Netanyahu’s far-right government completely missed the threat, stoked tensions and could easily now miscalculate the response. You cannot hold 2m people in an open-air prison without a gaoler: either Hamas, the PA, the IDF or a UN force would have to do it.
9/ Hence the need for an internationally mediated peace and a functional 2-state solution, that allows the people of Gaza to live in peace, exercise democracy and travel across borders. If the endame is a revenge fantasy of flattening Gaza and pushing its inhabitants into the Sinai, that is not an endgame: it’s the trigger for regional conflict…
10/ The West is only now waking up to what we on the democratic left have been warning about: the emergence of a new red-brown politics that is celebrating the murder of Israeli “hipsters” in NYC and chanting “gas the Jews” in Sydney. It’s serious and we have to defeat it through thought leadership, not just suppression of hate speech…
11/ There is an over-arching “BRICS+” ideology that celebrates all breakdowns in the global order – you can see it echoed in the Harvard student declarations. Paradoxically, the one people it will never benefit is the Palestinians, whose entire project of secular, Arab nationalism has depended on UN resolutions and international law.
12/ Solidarity to all my friends in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.
13/ Thanks to all who read and commented on this. I've turned it into a post at Conflict & Democracy - please share and subscribe https://htsf.substack.com/p/you-wanted-multipolarity-youre-getting
*****
So mister "OMG send all the money and arms to Ukraine because genocide imperialism solidarity" when presented with an actual policy of genocide, views this as merely 'disproportionate' and is only concerned about whether it is 'possible' to achieve the stated aim of destroying Hamas, albeit with some regrettable civilian casualties. And his only view of the resistance is that it's anti-semitic, terrorist and not representative of the will of the people. The irony and doublethink is almost enough to make your head explode, but on he goes without a care in the world. It's a marvel, really...
I
Tell your story; Ask a question; Interpret generously
http://storybythethroat.wordpress.com/tell-ask-listen/
Responses
« Back to index | View thread »