Israel’s supporters hide behind its high-tech means to avoid confronting the horror of mass civilian slaughter




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Thirty years of knowing how imperialism and manufactured consent work do not lessen one’s horror here, at a liberal elite willing to support coldly dealt-out mass death.

Bodies of Palestinians killed by an explosion at the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza (Image AP/Abed Khaled)
Bodies of Palestinians killed by an explosion at the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza (Image AP/Abed Khaled)

The difficult thing in trying to write about what is going on in Palestine/Israel at the moment is that one must choose between opening by recording the full and frank horror of it in its many dimensions – including, as I write, today’s hospital bomb strike, leaving hundreds dead and maimed – and thus saying nothing new or informative, or analysing and interpreting it, and thus normalising the events. The third option is thus sort of waffly meta-opening, which merely serves as the least worst option. 

In past years and recent decades there have been worse events than both the Hamas raid and the current Israeli pre-invasion bombardment and siege on Gaza. Ethnic massacres approximate to the number and horror of the Hamas raid have gone on in Africa and Asia; urban destruction on a Gaza scale has occurred in Chechnya, Syria and Ukraine. 

Keep reading of the horror that is Gaza right now.

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About the Author

Guy Rundle — Correspondent-at-large

Guy Rundle

Correspondent-at-large

Guy Rundle is correspondent-at-large for Crikey. He is also an associate editor at Arena Quarterly and contributes to a variety of publications in Australia and the United Kingdom.

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