Western powers giving ‘warrant for genocide’ says prominent Israeli historian
Avi Shlaim speaking in the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) panel discussion on ‘The War on Gaza: What’s next for Palestine?’, 30 October 2023
Alex MacDonald reports in Middle East Eye:
Western powers are giving Israel a “warrant for genocide” in the Gaza Strip, a prominent Israeli historian has warned.
Avi Shlaim, a prominent Israeli-British historian and emeritus professor of international relations at Oxford University, told an audience in London that US, UK, and European Union support for Israel – including military support – have made them complicit in “mass slaughter” in the Gaza Strip.
“The Western response to the crisis is the usual hypocrisy and ruthless double standards, but this time it’s been taken to a new level. The western love of Israel has always been accompanied, has always depended on the erasing of Palestinian history and humanity,” he said at an event on Monday, hosted by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP).
“Deep concern for Israel’s security is reiterated at all times by western leaders – but not a thought is given to Palestinian security.”
The event, ‘The War on Gaza: What’s Next for Palestine?’, also featured Daniel Levy, a negotiator for the Israeli side during the Oslo Accords; Wadah Khanfar, president of Al Sharq Forum and former director general of Al Jazeera; and Yasmine Ahmed, UK Director of Human Rights Watch; and was chaired by Middle East Eye’s Mohamed Hassan.
Shlaim was born in 1945 in Baghdad, to well-connected parents who were part of Iraq’s millennia-old Jewish minority. But at the age of five, Shlaim was forced to flee with his family, following bombings targeting Jewish people in the Iraqi capital. As one of the “New Historians” in Israel, he was part of a group that reassessed the history of the country and often shined a light on the repression of the Palestinians.
Speaking on Monday, Shlaim said that Palestinians’ resistance had been “decontextualised and dehistoricised” and that media and political coverage of the ongoing violence in Gaza largely ignored the situation prior to the Hamas operation in southern Israel on 7 October.
“The Israel-Hamas conflict did not begin on 7 October. In June 1967, Israel occupied not just Gaza, but the West Bank and Jerusalem. This is the most protracted and brutal military occupation of modern times,” he said.
“Israeli generals have a phrase – mowing the lawn. It’s a chilling metaphor, what it means is they have no solution to the problem, but every few years the IDF moves in with the most advanced weaponry, they smash up the place, degrade the military capabilities of Hamas…it’s a mechanical action that you do periodically every few years.
“So there’s no end to the bloodshed and the next war is always around the corner.”