Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace.

A few days ago, a British-born woman asked me why Israel had to kill all those Palestinians.  It should  “focus on destroying Hamas only,” she said. I thought she was so naive. A decent and rare piece on the Guardian although the writer has illusions in ‘the international community”  and ‘international law’. What would have been the reaction if those children were pets? What will they think of those who let it happen? Palestinian children injured in an Israeli air strike await treatment at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, on 17 October 2023 (Photo credit: AFP)

And European cynicism is more deadly still UN. SOS Méditerranée/Flavio Gasper

When evil-doing comes like falling rain Like one who brings an important letter to the counter after office hours: the counter is already closed. Like one who seeks to warn the city of an impending flood, but speaks another language. They do not understand him. Like a beggar who knocks for the fifth time at the door where he has four times been given something: the fifth time he is hungry. Like one whose blood flows from a wound and who awaits the doctor: his blood goes on flowing. So do we come forward and report that evil has been done us. The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread. When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out “stop!” When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summe

“Many terrorist organisations, pilloried as such in the course of recent history, have ceased to be pariahs and become legitimate interlocutors. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Algerian National Liberation Front, the African National Congress (ANC) and many others have been by turns described as ‘terrorists’, a word which serves to depoliticise their struggle, to present it as a confrontation between Good and Evil. Each time the Palestinians rebel, the West, – so prompt to glorify the resistance of the Ukrainians – speaks of terrorism. In 1967, following the Israeli aggression, General de Gaulle spoke these premonitory words: ‘Now Israel is organising, on the territories it has conquered, an occupation which will necessarily involve oppression, repression, and expulsions. If they encounter any resistance, they will call it terrorism…‘ Contrary to what many Israelis claim (…) this is not a ‘unilateral’ and ‘unprovoked’ attack. The fright which Israelis are experiencing just now, me

The US and European governments are reinventing a “new and improved” Israel: the perfect image of their sustained history of colonial and imperial savagery around the world. What Israel is doing now in Gaza echoes what the  French ,  British , Portuguese, Germans, Spanish, Americans and others have done around the globe throughout history.  Even for a committed Zionist, it would be hard not to notice the innate imperial brutality of Biden’s assertion about “inventing” Israel - not as a Jewish haven from a sustained history of European brutalisation culminating in the Holocaust, but as a military base to protect the best interests of a dysfunctional empire.  A reflection of American and European savagery around the world A child injured in Israeli attacks is taken to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, on 23 October 2023 (Reuters)

Not deep or a bigger picture , but you get the idea that men and women who belong to a certain group or defend certain interests in a class society decide on major issues, mobilise men and women in uniforms, and they are backed by an army of pundits and scholars.