As we wait - as the 2.3 million people of Gaza wait - for the IDF's 'ground offensive' to begin, with its inevitable enormous suffering and loss of life inflicted, and its potential ethnic cleansing and genocidal effects, civil society in the Middle East and in the Atlantic West is galvanised. Petitions of writers are organised, protest marches take place, the media is alive with discussion. Governments, alas, ooze on in their nefarious, dishonest and Orwellian support for the cruelty of the powerful - Netanyahu, Macron, Biden, Sunak, Scholz among the greasiest slugs heedlessly and hypocritically trailing their slime over the international discourse. If the worst happens, and there are plenty of signs that it may, these craven and shitty politicians will have nowhere to hide. It will not be possible to say 'I didn't know' or 'If I'd known what was going to happen, I'd have taken action'. What is happening and going to happen is clear - it is clear all across the Israeli political spectrum - and the time for action has actually already passed.
The London Review of Books, awful as its Irish coverage often is, has long been a place where strong writing on Palestine was published. Veterans of this work were and are Edward Said and Judith Butler. The current issue carries excellent pieces by Adam Shatz, the brilliant Israeli architect Eyal Weizman, Amjad Iraqi and Francis Gooding.
Adam Shatz · Vengeful Pathologies · LRB 20 October 2023
Eyal Weizman · Exchange Rate · LRB 2 November 2023
Amjad Iraqi · After the Flood · LRB 21 October 2023
Francis Gooding · The Leaflet · LRB 2 November 2023
Conor
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