I agree with Mearsheimer. Israel’s actions in Gaza look like a deliberate strategy to create a humanitarian crisis and this is probably a war crime. He doesn’t exactly say it but when he suggests that Israel has no rational strategic reason for their campaign in Gaza in its current form he points possibly to the view that this reaction to October 7 is going to be to Israel’s detriment. The silence of Western political and media classes which Mearsheimer refers to is indeed striking. (I am struck, for example by Times Radio – a channel which is normally quite decent, albeit operating within a NATO-Western think-tank frame but which has become, in relation to this situation, absolutely fascistic; openly airing the most extreme and racist points of view from pro-Israeli speakers or directly, themselves as journalists. [1] as if the statements are absolutely normal).
Notes
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCFj075uDsY&ab_channel=TimesRadio (I find this repetition of well-known talking points from a certain section of Israeli society largely unwatchable) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNCdIHQ4pJg&t=5s&ab_channel=TimesRadio (this one; notice how the reporter explains how there is something especial about Palestinian violence – it is “relentless” – unlike Israeli settler violence we are to believe? – and this reporter is one of the better ones) Or this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAUZE_Gx-8c&ab_channel=TimesRadio where the anchor really objects to the former British army Major General criticising the IDF’s treatment of prisoners by trying to claim that “you can’t tell the difference between a Hamas terrorist and a civilian” which seems to lead gently into the view that there is no difference, and so, all Palestinians are legitimate targets.