It was predictable, given the Israelophobic myopia of the West’s cultural elites, that Israel would be damned the minute it took action against the neo-fascists who had just executed the worst act of anti-Semitic savagery since the Holocaust. All the usual accusations were made. Israel’s missile strikes add up to ‘collective punishment’. Israel is using ‘genocidal language’. It is committing ‘war crimes’. It is ‘breaking international law’. Etc etc. One is forced to wonder what kind of messed-up law prevents the victims of racist slaughter from pursuing their killers.
This time, what’s been most striking is that even Israel’s efforts not to hit civilians, not to ‘collectively punish’ Gazans, have been rebranded as war crimes. Consider its advice that the people of northern Gaza should evacuate their homes so that they won’t be injured or killed in bombings. This is being called ‘ethnic cleansing’. One Palestinian politician says it is further proof that Israel is waging a war of ‘annihilation’. This is linguistic contortionism of an Orwellian degree: in trying to avoid annihilating the people of northern Gaza, Israel is being annihilationist. War is peace, freedom is slavery, evacuation is annihilation. …
We need to say how unhinged this discussion has become.
[Indeed we do, but we shouldn’t be surprised by it. This is exactly what gets said every time someone commits an act of war against Israel; the difference this time is the stark way in which this has become obvious after the grotesque nature of the latest Hamas murder spree. The elites really do want Israel to allow its own destruction. — Ed]
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