Humans can be taught to accept an awful lot that does not make sense, but there is a limit to what people can be plausibly told is not possible. Much of consent in politics is secured by popular agreement that there are things that are simply above the average citizen’s pay grade, and even beyond government control. Not being able to persuade “the only democracy in the Middle East” of something that seems plainly obvious, that the horrific events of 7 October cannot be erased by even more horror, is not one of them. The lesson is brutal and short: human rights are not universal and international law is arbitrarily applied.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As that happens, a jarringly bloodless account of the conflict is given by political leaders in countries like the US and UK, one that seems to omit the sheer fact and number of the deaths and resorts instead to an almost surreal language that calls for “every possible precaution” to protect civilian life.
That’s where the sense of losing your mind comes from: the fact that it seems, for the first time that I can think of, western powers are unable to credibly pretend that there is some global system of rules that they uphold.
The area is so densely populated that the toll of civilians is too high, and evidence for having undermined Hamas’s capabilities, the only possible justification for the casualties, is too low.
Unlike Iraq, it has not taken years for the bodies to pile up, for the evidence to mount and to prove that the venture made no one safer, was merciless and misguided – and ultimately for confidence and trust in political leadership to leach away.
Not just their deaths, estimated at up to 6,000 in less than two months, but their orphaning, displacement, and deprivation of food and water in a besieged Gaza that is now, according to Unicef, “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child”.
Much of consent in politics is secured by popular agreement that there are things that are simply above the average citizen’s pay grade, and even beyond government control.
The original article contains 1,041 words, the summary contains 244 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
human rights are not universal and international law is arbitrarily applied
LOL it took the latest in Palestine for them to figure that out?