COMMENTARY: By Malcolm Evans
Since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israeli military positions and civilian settlements it has become the norm for any debate on Israel’s overwhelming response to open with a requirement that anyone supportive of the Palestinians, first damn the actions of Hamas on that day.
Clearly intended to put any support for Palestinians on the back foot, the tactic springs a “Catch 22” moral conundrum trap, in which to either condone or condemn the Hamas attacks risks tarnishing any case promoting the Palestinians’ position.
And, feeling trapped by moral principle, many feel obliged to concede, at which point Israel is then promptly presented as having acted strictly in accordance with international law, and so the debate is effectively over before its begun.
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This is a gross and deliberate perversion of both the facts on the ground and that of any reasonable interpretation of the principles inherent in the international legal statute justifying war waged in self-defence.
It is the same as if it was argued that the 1943 razing of the Warsaw Ghetto, the slaughter of its defenders and the transportation of the survivors to death camps was justified, because the Jews there rose up and attacked their oppressors.
That aside, for any state to invoke the international law of “self-defence”, as justification for it waging war against an attacker, that state must surely, in the first instance, be at peace.
But the state of Israel hasn’t been at peace with Palestinians for a single day of its 75-year existence, in fact longer. The state of Israel illegally occupies or otherwise controls Palestine in its entirety, and in perpetuation and defence of that occupation it kills Palestinians every day.
Seduced by amoral media
However much we have been seduced by our amoral media, to believe Israel represents a haven of democracy, peace and virtue besieged by “subhuman terrorists” bent on its destruction, current events prove to all but those too blind to see that it is Israel which is the state bent on destruction of the other.
Make no mistake, whether by armed physical occupation, absolute control of all essential infrastructure, walled and fenced confinement on land and blockaded from the sea and subject to constant electronic supervision, Israel controls Palestinians lock, stock and barrel.
And any perceived semblance of a peaceful coexistence is only allowed to the extent it serves Israel’s ultimate purpose.
Hamas forces did not attack Israel on October 7, so triggering Israel’s claimed “right of self-defence”. Rather, Hamas rose up against the seventy-five-year-long attack which Israel’s vastly superior armed forces have been waging on recognised Palestinian territory, in defiance of international law and a myriad of UN resolutions, for all that time.
So, if any state has the right to invoke international law allowing retaliatory war to be waged in its own self-defence, it must surely be the Palestinians.
But, with its dead hand firmly in control of the news narrative all the while clouding our comprehension of real events with stories so sickeningly puerile as to defy humanity, the mass media makes a mockery of its mission, shames true Jewish history, and makes us complicit in the genocide of innocents.
Would that there was an international legal statute that allowed for any institution found waging war on our understanding of the truth of events, so making us complicit in war crimes, to be arraigned before the international court of justice for crimes against humanity.
Malcolm Evans is an multiple award-winning cartoonist and commentator. He has been a professional cartoonist and critic of injustice since the 1960s. Republished from The Daily Blog with the author’s permission.
Cartoon: © Malcolm Evans
