Attacking Gaza Again

In 2009, Avi Shlaim strongly criticized Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank in an article titled “How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe”. What he wrote five years ago is just as applicable today and more. Here’s his opening:

“The only way to make sense of Israel’s senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by ‘an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders’. I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel’s vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration’s complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.”

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11:42 am on July 29, 2014