Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Gaza will be the grave of the Western-led world order

in respect for cornelius and toyin, i will briefly point to moments in this editorial that strike me as tendentious, or worse, unnuanced and ultimately not true.

the "West" is what? are "western" govts all the same, are they monolithic, are "westerners" not just people like trump, but people like biden, like sanders, like aoc, like our muslim legislators? are the western jews not radically divided between jvp or jstreet jews who are radically opposed to the war in gaza, and aipac who support it?

isn't biden's govt pressing netanyahu to stop bombing civilians? isnt' the funding for israel being held up along with that of ukraine in congress? there has been open and loud disputation, even among democrats, about funding israel, about stopping supporting it in this war. every day there are headlines about biden pushing netanyahu to get to a 2 state solution, to stop bombing civilians, etc., and netanhayu refusing.

so, this opening in the editorial reads like nonsense: "Full-throttled Western support for Israel's genocidal rampage in Gaza has truly exposed the double standards of the West with regard to human rights and international law."

he goes on to cite the destruction of gaza, which has been roundly condemned by many many "western" leaders, including macron, and by marches and protests throughout the "western" world, everywhere. yet he writes:
"And yet, the reaction of Western governments – besides seemingly limitless military and political support – has been to label any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism and attempt to ban outright any expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people."

Limitless military and political support? Limitless? what world does he live in?

he modifies his Limitless, acknowledging his absolute claims are wrong: "Desperate to regain some semblance of credibility, Western governments (including the US) have recently started to be marginally critical of Israeli attacks. However, it is too little, too late. Western credibility has been shredded irrevocably."

desperate to regain credibility fromwhom??  this is silliness, not credible critique.

one can share his horror at what is happening in gaza, but the totalizing expressions about the west are too absolute. we need another level of analysis to make sense of this.

he carries on: "Of course, Western hypocrisy is nothing new. According to Western governments, the world should be up in arms about Russian aggression but should be perfectly happy with Israeli brutality and flouting of international norms."

perfectly happy? what universe does he inhabit? he reduces the west and its govts to a boogeyman, a straw target, that we should all condemn, leaving us asking, is this a world of such pure good and evil, so easily divided into victims and executioners?

we need another approach to condemning what israel is doing without such reductive thinking which undermines our critiques

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2024 6:20 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Gaza will be the grave of the Western-led world order

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/1/17/gaza-will-be-the-grave-of-the-western-led-world-order 

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