Gaza Wasteland

The tens of thousands of people who have died in Gaza are not the result of ‘collateral damage’, in that terrible American phrase. The Israeli state is consciously and deliberately killing them. After all, as the President has said, “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza”. They are killing them from the air, with shelling, with sniper fire, with starvation and disease. People are dying because of the absence of medical care as a result of destruction of hospitals. They are carrying out a collective punishment for what Hamas did on October 7^th . Even the children are being treated as guilty.

Elements within the Israeli intelligence services, concerned that what Israel is doing will only serve as a recruiting sergeant for Hamas, have been talking to Israeli magazine +972. They explained that prior to this invasion the IDF operated a policy of an ‘acceptable’ level of civilian deaths of 5 to 1 combatant. This has been abandoned in the latest unbridled retribution.

The genocidal rage of many members of the Israeli government and Knesset members, is reflected in massacres every day. An American surgeon who recently returned from Gaza reported on many young children with single gun-shot wounds to the head.

Israeli soldiers commonly produce videos boasting of what they have done: videos showing them burning food, destroying children’s toys, burning empty buildings, cheering when schools are blown up, even mocking the killing of children.

The Israeli state has deliberately made Gaza uninhabitable. They are destroying everything: homes, mosques, churches, libraries, universities, hospitals, shops. They have even blown up the national archive. They are reducing Gaza to a wasteland.

This frenzied killing and destruction is based on Jewish supremacism, which views Arabs as less than human. After all, Israel, in breach of international law, has occupied the West Bank and Gaza for 56 years, operating a military regime. The growing population of settlers have rights which are denied Arabs who live under military law. The prosecution rates in military courts have a ‘success’ rate of more that 99%. Thousands are in administrative detention, without trial. Children are regularly killed. In Israel itself Arabs are treated like ‘fifth columnists’ and Israeli Jews opposed to the war are being witch-hunted.

Those British and US politicians who have refused to condemn the massacres of the Israeli state are complicit in them. Contrast their readiness to condemn the war crimes of the Russian state in Ukraine, with their reticense in relation to Gaza. It shows their hypocrisy and their double standards.

Many years ago the Amercian writer James Baldwin said

“The children are always ours, every single one of them all over the globe, and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”

Not only have a huge number of children been killed in Gaza, thousands have lost their limbs. Thousands have been orphaned. Entire families have been wiped out. They are not responsible for what Hamas did. Yet they have been butchered because they are Arabs. The Israeli state dehumanises Arabs.

Not only should the demand for a ceasefire be pressed but all weapons sales to Israel should be halted and the crimes of the Israeli government, with its rabid racists, its ultra-nationalists and fascists in it, should be denounced without equivocation. The siege and starvation of the population must end.

This was a letter to the Swindon Advertiser, published today, March 7th 2024.