Amia Srinivasan & Facile Devji are among the 'scholars' who signed the following open letter sent to Rishi and Starmer both of whom are smart and studied useful things at Uni. They are successful politicians while the nutters who wrote this are shit at political philosophy or, indeed, any type of theoretical or practical reasoning.
We, the undersigned, are a group of academics who are scholars of political science, political philosophy, ethics, history, geography, law and the Middle East.
But people paid a little money to teach a subject are stupider and more ignorant than those who gain a lot of money and power by actually doing the things which the pedants can merely comment on.
We implore you to call for an immediate cessation to Israel’s morally disastrous attack on Gaza, and for Israel to allow the free passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, in addition to continuing to call on Hamas to release the Israeli hostages.
It doesn't matter what the UK calls for. It has no power or influence in the region. Israel will want a ceasefire so as to starve out the terrorists in the tunnels and, no doubt, will gracefully yield to some such suggestion from Biden when the time is right.
The attack by Hamas on 7th October was a horrific and morally abhorrent act of mass terrorism, one that indiscriminately targeted Israeli civilians, including children. According to international law, Israel has the right to take defensive measures against Hamas.
It has the right to attack Hamas even if it uses 'human shields'. Israel has complied with the 1977 protocol by issuing warnings. It has not deliberately or indiscriminately targeted civilians.
But this right does not extend to or justify Israel’s current onslaught on the civilian population of Gaza.
Yes it does. True, the ICC claims jurisdiction in Gaza by reason of Palestine's accession in 2015 but this means it is responsible for punishing atrocities by Hamas and PIJ. Yet it hasn't prosecuted one single Palestinian. Israel is not a member of ICC nor is the US, China, Iraq or Yemen.
Indeed, to think that the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas justify the humanitarian crisis currently unfolding in Gaza is
foolish. We think the one is the entirely predictable consequence of the other. The justification for killing innocent Palestinians or foreign AID workers is that they are collateral damage in what are intended as proportionate and discriminating attacks on hostile forces.
I am justified in shooting at a person who is trying to shoot me even if this causes his innocent wife, who is seeking to protect him with her own body, to be killed by my bullet. This is because my response is proportionate and discriminates between what is a clear and present threat to me and what is no such thing.
to indulge a central tenet of terrorism – that all citizens must pay for the misdeeds of their governments –
This is not a central tenet of terrorism. Otherwise, terrorists might just kill each other on the grounds that they are citizens of an evil government. Moreover, if our government does stupid shit, we will all pay the price. That is why it is in our interest to elect sensible leaders or to flee from places ruled by evil maniacs.
as well as terrorism’s central practice: collective punishment.
Again, this is not a central practice of terrorism. The terrorist wants to kill highly placed members of the Government. The IRA didn't storm into the local pub and beat all the drinkers there. They tried to kill high value targets like the Prime Minister.
True, a shitty type of terrorist organization may have to settle for raping babies and beheading grannies. But that is because it is utterly shit.
It appears that 'scholars' of political philosophy don't understand that terrorism is about scaring the shit out of people who matter. But, Intelligence Agencies may carry out assassinations in the national interest. Sowing terror in the heart of the criminal or the terrorist is not itself terrorism.
In its attack on Gaza, Israel has deliberately deprived innocent Palestinian civilians – a great number of them children – of water, food and electricity, as well as the means of escape.
As has Egypt. Israel has a justification in law and conventional morality. To starve out its enemy it must also inflict harm on the civilian population. Embargos of this type are perfectly legal. OPEC was justified in refusing to export petrol to the West even if this meant innocent Westerners were adversely affected. It was perfectly moral for many of us to refuse to buy things from apartheid South Africa even if this inflicted harm on the Black population there.
While Israel has recently agreed to allow limited deliveries of food, water and medical supplies through the Egypt-Gaza border, it continues to refuse the passage of fuel into Gaza, imperilling the ability of hospitals to function.
So, it was Israel which was enabling those hospitals to function for all these years. Good to know.
The amount of aid Israel has agreed to allow in, the UN’s humanitarian chief recently warned, is grossly insufficient.
In 2015, Egypt flooded the tunnels through which things were smuggled in. It seems the Egyptians were more successful in sealing their side of the border and in enforcing the embargo.
Israel’s initial order to a population of approximately 1.2 million women, men and children in the north of Gaza to evacuate their homes in just 24 hours, with no guarantee of safety or the right to return, has been described as ‘the war crime of forcible transfer’ by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
They are wrong. Israel did not have the military power in Gaza to force anybody to do anything. Even if they had, they have a defence in law- viz. 'protection of civilians' and 'imperative military reasons'.
The United Nations warned of this action’s ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’.
Which Hamas had ample forewarning of.
As we write, Gaza’s death toll has risen to approximately 3500, with another 12,500 injured.
It is probably at least 10,000 by now. The battle for Mosul probably took fewer lives.
Included in that number are many children, journalists, health workers and aid workers. UNRWA, the UN’s agency supporting Palestinian refugees, has declared the situation an ‘unprecedented human catastrophe’.
With plenty of precedents in that part of the world. The Syrian War has probably cost about 350,000 lives. The peak civilian death toll for Iraq was in 2006 when about 30,000 were killed.
Israel’s actions are an affront to basic moral dignity.
In which case, the War on Terror didn't just affront basic moral dignity. It gouged out its eyes and copulated with its empty eye sockets while lustily singing Yankee Doodle Dandy.
These facts are by now familiar. The question is how both the British government and its Opposition can, in the face of them, continue to support Israel’s actions.
They are as nothing compared to our own actions in support of Uncle Sam. Even Prince Harry ended up killing 25 Muslims.
We implore you, as academics who spend our lives thinking about events such as these,
and then babbling paranoid lies
to see what, in the fullness of history, will be obvious to all: that Israel is today engaged in a morally disastrous exercise,
No. It is doing more of what it was previously doing. This time, however, Hamas won't be left in charge. By the end of the decade, the place will be policed by AI enhanced robots of some sort. Israel will get rich selling that tech around the globe.
and that those nations who give Israel cover to do so
Egypt. That's who is 'giving cover' to Israel. They could open their borders to Gazans. The UN will be able to feed them and shelter them. But this would mean the Brotherhood getting a foothold in the Sinai peninsula.
have innocent Palestinian blood on their hands.
These people have innocent Palestinian blood on their hands- or would do so if they agreed to fist Palestinian lesbians who are on the rag. I may mention that I only quit my PhD program in political philosophy because I believed I would be required to perform this repugnant task. It is not true that Trump University refused to accept me because my check bounced.
In the name of human dignity and moral decency, you must call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Sadly, calling for things which you can't make happen does not help anybody's dignity. Nor does it uphold decency- unless decency got drunk and you are helping it into a taxi.
On the other hand, agreeing to fist a menstruating Palestinian lesbian- which, btw, is how Noam Chomsky got his start- will cover your hand with innocent Palestinian blood. Moreover, your feelings will be hurt if the lady in question later ghosts you on Social Media. But this is a topic for Amia Srinivasan's next book. Facile, meanwhile, is refusing to answer my voicemails even though I describe myself as a Palestinian lady of exceptional pulchritude. He probably doesn't want innocent Palestinian blood on his hands. Which of us does? Oh. Right. Obviously, Rahul is the poppet horny Lezzas should be drunk-dialling.
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