Rashid Khalidi: “What has been done to Gaza is far worse than what was done to any part of Palestine in 1948, and what is being done to Lebanon is far worse than what was done to Lebanon in 1982 or 2006. This is a war of extermination — it’s a genocide. I was reading a play by Marina Carr talking about the razing of Troy after the Trojan War. Quoting Hecuba, she says, ‘This is not war — in war there are rules, laws, codes. This is genocide. They’re wiping us out’.” “ I think there is a threat to the entire international legal order if this is allowed to continue, as it has been by the United States.” Unfortunately, it seems that Khalidi, like a few other scholars, believe in international law. Unsurprisingly, the concept has been a powerful one and even sections of the left still believes in it. Khalidi: “ I do think that there has been a major, consequential shift in public opinion; I don’t think there are likely to be consequences on the political level in the short term. Whoever’s
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51