For decades Israel has relied on the world’s sympathy after the Holocaust and centuries of anti-Semitism. That sympathy was there from the overwhelming majority after October 7th, and rightly so.
However, it has meant that the world has looked away through decades of Israeli persecution of the Palestinian population, with the occasional attention when Palestinians revolted against that persecution. Not any more. The Israelis have trashed what sympathy they might have had with their utter brutality which as you say amounts to genocide. Israelis and the wider Jewish community will now have to live with the consequences of what they have done. They are now the ones who will have to bear the guilt, whether individually deserved or undeserved. Hiding behind the Holocaust will no longer work when their own words and behaviour reflects those who perpetrated that horror.
Organisations like +972 and liberal Jews everywhere who have been protesting against the Israeli government and exposing its crimes will need every support. Israel, its government and the attitude of too many of its population has to fundamentally change. It has gone rogue. Only the US has the power to initiate that change. Cutting off the supply of all but genuinely defensive weapons would be a good start.
Terrific, if awful what you spell out. Your comment about whenever have the Gazans been asked about anything reminds me of a story that Chris Patten often tells about his time as governor of Hong Kong. In the run-up to 1997, after each visit to Beijing, he would tell his hosts that he was going back to Hong Kong to tell the people there what they had discussed. His hosts would get very perplexed and would respond: "Why would you do that? What has it got to do with them?"
For decades Israel has relied on the world’s sympathy after the Holocaust and centuries of anti-Semitism. That sympathy was there from the overwhelming majority after October 7th, and rightly so.
However, it has meant that the world has looked away through decades of Israeli persecution of the Palestinian population, with the occasional attention when Palestinians revolted against that persecution. Not any more. The Israelis have trashed what sympathy they might have had with their utter brutality which as you say amounts to genocide. Israelis and the wider Jewish community will now have to live with the consequences of what they have done. They are now the ones who will have to bear the guilt, whether individually deserved or undeserved. Hiding behind the Holocaust will no longer work when their own words and behaviour reflects those who perpetrated that horror.
Organisations like +972 and liberal Jews everywhere who have been protesting against the Israeli government and exposing its crimes will need every support. Israel, its government and the attitude of too many of its population has to fundamentally change. It has gone rogue. Only the US has the power to initiate that change. Cutting off the supply of all but genuinely defensive weapons would be a good start.
Terrific, if awful what you spell out. Your comment about whenever have the Gazans been asked about anything reminds me of a story that Chris Patten often tells about his time as governor of Hong Kong. In the run-up to 1997, after each visit to Beijing, he would tell his hosts that he was going back to Hong Kong to tell the people there what they had discussed. His hosts would get very perplexed and would respond: "Why would you do that? What has it got to do with them?"
Yes,.