8 Comments
Aug 27Liked by Matt Carr

Entirely correct. The natural right to defence is not the correct term for what is happening, which is a vicious sustained and politically motivated (and openly discussed in Israeli's Governing circles) final solution to the Palestinian problem, affected by mass trauma, disease, starvation and weapons indiscriminate death, leading to mass exodus, or complete subjugation.

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Zionism was discussed in Vienna during the 1870s as a solution to the Jewish in Europe, genocide was discussed and partially enacted during the last century as a solution to the Jewish problem. The zionists and their so called Israeli state, currently occupying Palestine have had an in depth education.

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Aug 27Liked by Matt Carr

About best piece of writing about the Gaza war and the USA government,s full hearted aiding and abetting of the genocide of the Gazans. Plus your look into the future of Gaza and its people, which is badly neglected at present.

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Sep 17Liked by Matt Carr

I agree with most of what you say, Matt, but I do object to this framing: "So far, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 40,334 people are known to have been killed in Gaza". What's wrong with simply "according to the Gaza Health Ministry"? As far as I understand it, nobody has contested the figures, not even the Israelis. Almost nobody doubts that at least that many have been killed, and many suggest the figures are a lot higher. So what is the point of qualifying the source in that way? This serves to imply that they might be dodgy by attaching that "Hamas-controlled" label. But a lot of the information we get is coming through Israeli or Israeli-managed sources. Most of the 'journalists' reporting on it are based in Jerusalem and never go into Gaza. Why not say "according to Israeli-based sources" when using their information?

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It's not my intention to cast doubt on those figures, Zoltan, but I do feel a responsibility to spell out where they come from. I put that framing because the Gaza Health Ministry is still the Ministry of one of two sides in the conflict. In most armed conflicts, especially between a weaker and a stronger side, the weaker has an interest in magnifying civilian casualty figures. I personally haven't seen any evidence to suggest that the Gaza Health Ministry has done this, and I agree that the figures are likely to be much higher. But I thought I should at least identify where they came from, and I would use (and have used - in other pieces) 'Israeli-based sources' or a similar framing to refer to information regarding 'terrorist targets' etc.

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Aug 27Liked by Matt Carr

As always, excellent article, thank you!

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An Israeli general described what has been happening in the West Bank as pogroms. More recently the head of Shin Bet described it as terrorism. Israel and its Jewish population has become a terror state, as indeed it was founded with and through terrorism. Its reputation has changed irreversibly not just in the mind of its traditional enemies but amongst more liberal people, historically sympathetic partly because of memories of the horrors of the Holocaust. Now Israeli Jews have committed a genocide themselves after decades of running an apartheid state, they will have live with the consequences. Cries of anti-semitism have become like crying ‘Wolf’. The real antisemites have been given an open goal. Ironically they come mostly from the far right, the home of anti-semitism, which is where Israeli politics is located today. It will not end well.

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Powerful stuff Matt and from someone who knew Gaza before all these decades of carnage

And weseal words indeed from Harris about 'immense suffering ' - the way I see it is that the state of Israel is basically a kind of 51st state. All the funding it gets has to be used to buy US military equipment - Tony Benn would have been impressed by such state sponsorship of home industries!! So I feel an immense foreboding for the poor Palestinians looking back at the record of the US in South America Central America and South East Asia since 1945

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