Israel’s relationship with the United Nations, international institutions and international law has at times bristled with suspicion and blatant hostility. In a famous cabinet meeting in 1955, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion famously knocked back the suggestion that the United Nations 1947 plan for partitioning Palestine had been instrumental in creating the State of Israel. “No, no, no!” he roared in demur. “Only the daring of the Jews created the state, and not any oom-shmoom resolution.”

In the shadow of the Holocaust, justifications for violence against foes mushroom multiply. Given that international law, notably in war, entails restraint and limits on the use of force, doctrines have been selectively pruned and shaped, landscaped to suit the needs of the Jewish state. When the strictures of convention have been ignored, the reasoning is clipped for consistency: defenders of international law and its institutions have been either missing in the discussion or subservient to Israel’s enemies. They were nowhere to be seen, for instance, when Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser was preparing for war in the spring of 1967. Israel’s tenaciously talented statesman, Abba Eban, reflected in his autobiography about the weakness of the UN in withdrawing troops from the Sinai when pressured by Nasser to do so. It “destroyed the most central hopes and expectations on which we had relied on withdrawing from Sinai.”

These steely attitudes have seen international convention and practice, in the Israeli context, treated less as Dickensian ass as protean instruments, useful to deploy when convenient, best modified or ignored when nationally inconvenient. This is most evident regarding the Israel-Hamas war, which is now into its third month. Here, Israeli authorities are resolute in their calls that Islamic terrorism is the enemy, that its destruction is fundamental for civilisation, and that crushing measures are entirely proportionate. Palestinian civilian deaths might be regrettable but all routes of blame lead to Hamas and its resort to human shields.

These arguments have failed to convince a growing number of countries. One of them is South Africa. On December 29, the Republic filed an application in the International Court of Justice alleging “violations by Israel regarding the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide […] in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” Various “acts and omissions” by the Israeli government were alleged to be “genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent … to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza as part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.” What Pretoria is seeking is both a review of the merits of the case and the imposition of provisional measures that would essentially modify, if not halt, Israel’s Gaza operation.

Prior to its arguments made before the 15-judge panel on January 12, Israel rejected “with contempt the blood libel by South Africa in its application to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).” The Israeli Foreign Ministry went so far as to suggest that the court was being exploited, while South Africa was, in essence, “collaborating with a terror group that calls for the destruction of Israel.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with demagogic rage, claimed that his country had witnessed “an upside-down world. Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting against genocide.” The country was battling “murderous terrorists who carried out crimes against humanity.” Government spokesman Eylon Levy tried to make it all a matter of Hamas, nothing more, nothing less. “We have been clear in word and in deed that we are targeting the October 7^th monsters and are innovating ways to uphold international law.”

In that innovation lies the problem. Whatever is meant by such statements as those of Israel Defence Forces spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, that “Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza”, the catastrophic civilian death toll, destruction, displacement and starvation would suggest the contrary. Innovation in war often entails carefree slaughter with a clear conscience.

On another level, the Israeli argument is more nuanced, going to the difficulties of proving genocidal intent. Amichai Cohen of Israel’s Ono Academic College and senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute admits that comments from right-wing Israeli ministers calling for the “emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza were not helpful. (They were certainly helpful to Pretoria’s case.) But he insists that the South African argument is based on “classic cherry-picking.” Cohen should know better than resort to the damnably obvious: all legal cases are, by definition, exercises of picking the finest cherries in the orchard.

The Israeli defence team’s oral submissions to the ICJ maintained a distinct air of unreality. Tal Becker, as legal advisor to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, tried to move judicial opinion in his address by drawing upon the man who minted genocide as a term of international law, Raphael Lemkin. Invariably, it was Becker’s purpose to again return to the Holocaust as “unspeakable” and uniquely linked to the fate of the Jews, implying that Jews would surely be incapable of committing those same acts. But here was South Africa, raining on the sacred flame, invoking “this term in the context of Israel’s conduct in a war it did not start and did not want. A war in which Israel is defending itself against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations whose brutality knows no bounds.” Israel, pure; Israel vulnerable; Israel under attack.

In yet another jurisprudential innovation, Becker insisted that the Genocide Convention was not connected in any way to “address the brutal impact of intensive hostilities on the civilian population, even when the use of force raises ‘very serious issues of international law’ and involves ‘enormous suffering’ and ‘continuing loss of life’.” The Convention, rather, was meant “to address a malevolent crime of the most exceptional severity.”

The view is reiterated by another lawyer representing Israel. “The inevitable fatalities and human suffering of any conflict,” submitted Christopher Staker, “is not of itself a pattern of conduct that plausibly shows genocidal intent.” Butcheries on a massive scale would not, in of themselves, suggest such the requisite mental state to exterminate a race, ethnic or religious group.

As for South Africa’s insistence that provisional measures be granted, Staker was unwavering in repeating the familiar talking points. They “would stop Israel defending its citizens, more citizens could be attacked, raped and tortured [by Hamas], and provisional measures would prevent Israel doing anything.”

Legal tricks and casuistry were something of a blooming phenomenon in Israel’s submissions. South Africa had, according to Becker, submitted “a profoundly distorted factual and legal picture. The entirety of its case hinges on deliberately curated, decontextualised, and manipulative description of the reality of current hostilities.” Happy to also do a little bit of decontextualising, curating and manipulating himself, Becker trotted out the idea that, in accusing Israeli’s war methods as being genocidal, Pretoria was “delegitimizing Israel’s 75-year existence in its opening presentation.” It entailed erasing Jewish history and excising “any Palestinian agency or responsibility.” Such a ploy has been Israel’s rhetorical weapon for decades: all those who dare judge the state’s actions in a bad light also judge the legitimacy of the Jewish state to exist.

Malcom Shaw, a figure known for his expertise in the thorny realm of territorial disputes, did his little bit of legal curation. He took particular issue with South Africa’s use of history in suggesting that Israel had engaged in a prolonged dispossession and oppression of the Palestinians, effectively a remorseless, relentless Nakba lasting 75 years. The submission was curious for lacking any mooring in history, a fatal error to make when considering the Israel-Palestinian issue. It’s also palpably inaccurate, given the dozens of statements made by Israeli politicians over the decades acknowledging the brutal, ruthless and dispossessing tendencies of their own country. But legal practitioners love confines and walled off applications. The only thing that mattered here, argued Shaw, was the attack of October 7 by Hamas, a sole act of barbarity that could be read in terrifying isolation. That, he claimed was “the real genocide in this situation.”

Having tossed around his own idea about the real genocidaires (never Israel, remember?), Shaw then appealed to the sanctity of the term genocide, one so singular it would be inapplicable in most instances. Conflicts could still be brutal, and not be genocidal. “If claims of genocide were to become the common currency of our conflict … the essence of this crime would be diluted and lost.” Woe to the diluters.

Gilad Noam, in closing Israel’s defence, rejected the characterisation of Israel by South Africa as a lawless entity that regarded “itself as beyond and above the law”, whose population had become infatuated “with destroying an entire population.” In a sense, Noam makes a revealing point. What makes Israel’s conduct remarkable is that its government claims to operate within a world of laws, a form of hyper-legalisation just as horrible as a world without laws.

Ironically enough, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has been furiously pressing the International Criminal Court to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the crime of genocide, the siege and bombardment of Gaza “and the many expressions of genocidal intent, especially in his deleted tweet from 10/17/2023.” The tweet (or post) in question crudely and murderously declared that, “This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.” If that does not reveal intent, little else will.

The @LemkinInstitute calls on the @IntlCrimCourt to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu @IsraeliPM for the crime of #genocide in light of the siege and bombardment of #Gaza and the many expressions of genocidal intent, especially his deleted tweet from 10/17/2023. pic.twitter.com/ebbDnIjWX7

— Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (@LemkinInstitute) October 18, 2023

What a show. As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was promoting a message of calm restraint and firm control in limiting the toxic fallout of Israel’s horrific campaign in Gaza, a decision was made by his government, the United Kingdom and a few other reticent collaborators to strike targets in Yemen, including the capital Sana’a. These were done, purportedly, as retribution for attacks on international commercial shipping in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The wording in a White House media release mentions the operation’s purpose and the relevant participants. “In response to continued illegal, dangerous, and destabilizing Houthi attacks against vessels, including commercial shipping, transiting the Red Sea, the armed forces of the United States and the United Kingdom, with support from the Netherlands, Canada, Bahrain, and Australia, conducted joint strikes in accordance with the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense.”

US Air Forces Central Command further revealed that the “multinational action targeted radar systems, defense systems, and storage and launch sites for one way attack unmanned aerial systems, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.”

The rationale by the Houthis is that they are targeting shipping with a direct or ancillary Israeli connection, hoping to niggle them over the barbarities taking place in Gaza. As the Israeli Defence Forces are getting away with, quite literally, bloody murder, the task has fallen to other forces to draw attention to that fact. Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdusalam’s post was adamant that “there was no threat to international navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas, and the targeting was and will continue to affect Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine.”

But that narrative has been less attractive to the supposedly law-minded types in Washington and London, always mindful that commerce trumps all. Preference has been given to such shibboleths as freedom of navigation, the interests of international shipping, all code for the protection of large shipping interests. No mention is made of the justification advanced by the Houthi rebels and the Palestinian plight, a topic currently featuring before the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Another feature of the strikes is the absence of a Security Council resolution from the United Nations, technically the sole body in the international system able to authorise the use of force under the UN Charter. A White House statement on January 11 attributes authority to the strikes much the same way the administration of George W. Bush did in justifying the warrantless, and illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003. (Ditto those on his same, limited bandwidth, Tony Blair of the UK and John Howard of Australia.) On that occasion, the disappointment and frustrations of weapons inspectors and rebukes from the UN about the conduct of Saddam Hussein, became vulnerable to hideous manipulation by the warring parties.

On this occasion, a “broad consensus as expressed by 44 countries around the world on December 19, 2023” and “the statement by the UN Security Council on December 1, 2023, condemning Houthi attacks against merchant and commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea” is meant to add ballast. Lip service is paid to the self-defence provisions of the UN Charter.

In a separate statement, Biden justified the attack on Houthi positions as necessary punishment for “unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea – including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history.” He also made much of the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian, “a coalition of more than 20 nations committed to defending international shipping and deterring Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.” No mention of the Israeli dimension here, at all.

In addition to the pregnant questions on the legality of such strikes in international law, the attacks, at least as far as US execution was concerned, was far from satisfactory to some members of Congress. Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashita Tlaib was irked that US lawmakers had not been consulted. “The American people are tired of endless war.” Californian Rep. Barbara Lee warned that, “Violence only begets more violence. We need a ceasefire now to prevent deadly, costly, catastrophic escalation of violence in the region.”

A number of Republicans also registered their approval of the stance taken by another Californian Democrat, Rep. Ro Khanna, who expressed with certitude the view that Biden had “to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another middle eastern conflict.” Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah was in full agreement, as was West Virginia Republican Rep. Thomas Massie. “Only Congress has the power to declare war,” Massie affirmed.

Unfortunately for these devotees of Article I of the US Constitution, which vests Congress approval powers for making war, the War Powers Act, passed by Congress in November 1973, merely requires the president to inform Congress within 48 hours of military action, and the termination of such action within 60 days of commencement in the absence of a formal declaration of war by Congress or authorisation of military conflict. These days, clipping the wings of the executive when it comes to engaging in conflict is nigh impossible.

There was even less of a debate about the legality or wisdom of the Yemen strikes in Australia. Scandalously, and with a good deal of cowardice, the government preferred a deafening silence for hours in the aftermath of the operation. The only source confirming that personnel of the Australian Defence Forces were involved came from Biden, the commander-in-chief of another country. There had been no airing of the possibility of such involvement. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had, in not sending a warship from the Royal Australian Navy to join Operation Prosperity Guardian, previously insisted that diplomacy might be a better course of action. Evidently, that man is up for turning at a moment’s notice.

In a brief statement made at 4.38 pm on of January 12 (there was no press conference in sight, no opportunity to inquire), Albanese declared with poor conviction that, “Australia alongside other countries has supported the United States and the United Kingdom to conduct strikes to deal with this threat to global rules and commercial shipping.” He had waited for the best part of a day to confirm it to the citizenry of his country. He had done so without consulting Parliament.

Striking the Houthis would seem, on virtually all counts, to be a signal failure. Benjamin H. Friedman of Defense Priorities sees error piled upon error: “The strikes on the Houthis will not work. They are very unlikely to stop Houthi attacks on shipping. The strikes’ probable failure will invite escalation to more violent means that may also fail.” The result: policymakers will be left “looking feckless and thus tempted to up the ante to more pointless war to solve a problem better left to diplomatic means.” Best forget any assuring notions of taking the sting out of the expanding hostilities. All roads to a widening war continue to lead to Israel.

By guest columnist Tess Lawrence

Michelle Obama for President?

Yes, of course. Is it even a thing? Absolutely.

It makes sense out of Donald Trump’s nonsensical but dangerous bid to reclaim his title of Heavyweight Champion Idiot of the Free World.

He’s turned Uncle Sam into Uncle Spam. Uncle Sham. And then there’s all that pussy-grabbing wham, bam, thank you ma’am stuff.

Let’s face it. Joe Biden’s election restored some sanity to the Oval Office along with the restoration of normal and bureaucratic, domestic doings of the White House.

Remember all those unoccupied offices when dicktator Trump was in power?

Who needs all those rooms when your entire staff comprises family, a la Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa dynasty?

Ivanka, Eric, Donald Jr – in their father’s White House, many mansions

In their father’s White House were many, many mansions for the likes of Ivanka, Eric, the very junior Donald Junior and the other Trumplets and their partners.

Biden steadied the ship and removed the floating shit. Sure, he had the advantage of being Veep to President Barack Obama, so the presidency was always in his vision and scope and certainly, within his grasp and capacity.

Now, there’s a hole in Biden’s bucket list

But now there’s a hole in the bucket list of Joseph Robinette Biden Junior, the 46^th President of a very Disunited States. But hey, name me a country that isn’t suffering from an identity crisis on this very day, including our own.

There are legitimate concerns about Joe Biden’s capacity to win, let alone see out a second term, healthwise. President Biden is now 81 years old, but it’s not his age that’s the problem.

He seems to be suffering from some sort of condition, and the world has been watching when, on occasion, First Lady Dr Jill Biden, has ‘rescued’ him from his apparent vagueness and disorientations; rather like the courageous efforts of Nancy with Ronald Reagan.

Does Biden have dementia? Not a sin.

There is loud rumour that Biden may be exhibiting signs of dementia. That’s not a sin. But it is certainly worrying when you have to function as the President of the United States. You have to be ‘home’ 24/7. The world depends on it.

Biden’s campaign opening speech, delivered on the eve of January 6^th, the third anniversary of the Trump induced storming of the Capitol was brilliant and coherent, well written and well delivered. He stutters. I get that. So do I. That’s not counted.

“…Today, we gather in a new year…just one day before January 6, a day forever seared in our memory because it was on that day that we nearly lost America, lost it all.

Today, we’re here to answer the most important of questions. Is democracy still America’s sacred cause? I mean it.

This is not rhetorical, academic or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time.

And it’s what the 2024 election is all about.

The choice is clear.”

Biden kicks off 2024 campaign in PA with speech marking three years since Jan. 6:

Biden calls out Trump’s megalomania and magalomania

Biden’s recounting of the insurrection and the awful destructive, cruel hubris fuelled by the megalomania and the magalomania of the gross narcissist Donald Trump must surely send a shiver down what is left of the collective spine of the world’s so-called democracies.

But if not Biden for president, who then?

To some, Vice-president Kamala Harris has failed to live up to early promise and whether by Camp Biden design or her own, she hasn’t really appeared to grow in the role in terms of her public profile, although latterly she’s been on more overseas missions.

This from The White House website:

“On August 11, 2020, Vice President Harris accepted President Joe Biden’s invitation to become his running mate and help unite the nation. She is the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected Vice President, as was the case with other offices she has held. She is, however, determined not to be the last.”

As things stand. Or fall. She could still become president if Biden died, resigned or was found to be incapacitated. Once unshackled, Harris could surprise us all.

Could she beat Donald Trump? Probably not.

Cometh the hour, cometh the woman, Michelle Obama

Then suddenly but not entirely unexpected, a shaft of sunlight beams through the darkness.

Cometh the hour, cometh the woman; Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama.

In her timely appearance on Jay Shetty’s madly popular award-winning health and wellbeing podcast, ON Purpose, Obama just happened to let slip that she was terrified at the possible outcome of the US 2024 presidential race.

What Michelle Obama said on ON Purpose was on purpose.

MICHELLE OBAMA Opens Up on Her 8 Years in The White House: “We Know Too Much.”

For commentators, it signaled what many Democrats and others alike had hoped for. Former First Lady, Michelle Obama was touting the possibility of entering the race for the presidency.

Two women could beat Trump: Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama

There are two women of colour who could take on Trump and win – Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama. If Obama is serious, she would surely receive backing from Winfrey – and if so, watch out allegedly ex CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Something is going on in the engine room of the Obamas. Both have publicly expressed concern about the possible implications for America if Trump somehow slithers his way back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; although I don’t think either have mentioned him by name.

Michelle Robinson Obama might well seem like a lonesome Crusoe if she does campaign for preselection under the umbrella of the Democratic Party, but she won’t be the first African American woman to do so.

The making of a precedent Or two. Shirley Anita Chisolm

That title goes to the extraordinary and powerful orator, Shirley Anita Chisholm.

In 1972, with the telling campaign slogan ‘UNBOUGHT AND UNBOSSED’ Chisholm, who had already made her mark by being the first African America woman to be elected to Congress, where she was to serve for seven terms.

Shirley Chisholm: The first black woman to run for US president.

Although the former First Lady was the first African American to occupy that role, there is little doubt that her marriage to President Obama was a marriage of equals in that she was and remains an effective communicator and administrator who seriously champions a number of causes and projects. Then. And now.

Sometimes, given the crude political intrusion of the Trump years, that still contaminate global politics, the Obama years seem ethereal. Did it really happen that America once had a black President? I was doing a vox pop in Victoria’s Thornbury when Obama was elected – and some people were weeping with joy that such a thing could happen!

Can you imagine a black man being elected elected US President today? No. Can you imagine a black woman being elected President today? Yes, if that woman is Michelle Obama.

A poster for presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm from 1972. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gifted with pride from Ellen Brooks.

Yes, she can!

Michelle Obama will be sixty on Wednesday. She’s a bub compared with Biden. Again, it’s not the age that matters; it is the capacity to lead and all the depth and breadth that leadership entails. Can she do it? Yes, she can.

Clearly a profound thinker, writer and doer, clues lay in what the Obamas have been up to since they left The White House, both collectively and individually and at times the couple has come under scrutiny and copped some criticism.

The human obstacle to Obama’s ambition is Harris. Michelle Obama as running mate of the current Veep won’t cut it.

Michelle Obama, running mate Kamala Harris. Heir and spare

Would Harris stand aside and be prepared to be Obama’s vice presidential running mate? That’s a big ask for someone who’s already the current heir to the throne. Why would she agree to be relegated to a spare?

And yet, a Michelle Obama/Kamala Harris ticket is not only compelling, it may just save the Democrats and may yet save America from repugnant Trumpian Republicanism.

A presidential Trump loss would hopefully chasten the Grand Old Party and rejuvenate it. Force it to reform; shed its skin. It ain’t healthy to have a weak political opponent in Federal or state politics, let alone have weak governments as incumbents.

Can Michelle Obama defeat Donald Trump?

Yes, she can.

The cathedral of censorship is a vast, airy one. In its embrace, texts are abridged, images removed, ideas scrubbed. Historical inconveniences are filed and rendered inaccessible. The only sermons tolerated will be those satisfying and serving the dictates of power.

The power Israel disproportionately wields here, notably across a number of Western democratic states, is staggering. It is manifested in moves to not publish material critical of the country’s assault on Gaza, and, in some cases, directly target journalists who dare violate such injunctions.

Censorship is a manifold beast. The conventional approach is that of the blanking redaction: the “nothing to see here” school of regulation. Another is that of imposing what is akin to a counterfeit balancing act: to mention the slaughter of thousands of Palestinian children must be, for instance, softened by mention of a dozen Israeli children who were killed, mutilated or kidnapped by barbaric Hamas fighters. Each message, dispatch and broadcast must be accordingly laden with such qualifications.

In some cases, certain matters are simply not mentioned, indexed for being too unsavoury, too challenging, too inconvenient. To also run them would risk careers and put reputations at risk. Moral cowardice is guaranteed to do the rest.

Examples abound in the field. In October, the German media behemoth, Axel Springer, took a dim view of 20-year-old news apprentice Kasem Raad for taking issue with the outlet’s crawlingly pro-Israeli line. He had asked questions of the management line regarding Israel’s military operations while also posting a video disputing parts of the Israeli narrative regarding the Hamas attacks on October 7. “It is one of my rights to ask questions. I wanted to stay at Axel Springer,” claimed Raad, who was fired for his alleged impertinence. “Unfortunately, I was taken in for questioning by senior management, who told me, ‘We are Germans and we need to do this’.”

In November, almost a dozen staffers at the Los Angeles Times signed an open letter condemning the Israeli operations in Gaza, arguing that such efforts alongside the media blockade “threatens newsgathering in unprecedented fashion.” In addition to noting the runaway death toll of Palestinians, the letter was also cognisant of the growing number of slain journalists. “As reporters, editors, photographers, producers, and other workers in newsrooms around the world, we are appalled at the slaughter of our colleagues and their families by the Israeli military and government.”

The letter also goes on to note the “dehumanizing rhetoric” being used by “Western newsrooms” that have “served to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Double-standards, inaccuracies and fallacies abound in American publications and these have been well-documented.”

On November 18, Semafor reported that “staffers who signed the letter have been told by the paper’s management that they will not be allowed to cover the conflict in any way for at least three months.” That’s certainly one way of enforcing balance.

A favourite of news management in such cases is also the non-renewal of contracts. Veteran cartoonist Steve Bell received such treatment from The Guardian in October, ending a four-decade association. It involved a submitted cartoon, featuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu performing surgery on his own stomach with two scalpels while wearing boxing gloves, revealing a flesh incision in the shape of the Gaza Strip. Internal complaints followed. The scolding line from management: “Jewish bloke; pound of flesh; anti-Semitic trope.” As Bell reflected, “It is getting pretty nigh impossible to draw this subject for the Guardian now without being accused of deploying ‘antisemitic tropes’.”

Had the incurious dunderheads at the paper bothered to do their research, they would have realised that Bell was not even referencing the famous Shakespearian remark by Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. It was inspired by the satirical work of cartoonist David Levine, a frequent New York Review of Books contributor who thought it appropriate to, in 1966, mock US President Lyndon B. Johnson’s posing for cameras to sport a scar left by gallbladder surgery. Levine’s little touch-up gave the scar the shape of Vietnam, a country that would come to define his presidency.

The Spectator’s editor, Fraser Nelson, appropriately remarked that this whole chapter potentially imperilled the glorious savagery of British satire itself, menaced by such forces as the social media juggernaut and doltish editors. To have depicted Netanyahu as an echo of LBJ seemed a “fair analogy: Netanyahu will be defined by what happens next in Gaza just as LBJ was by Vietnam.”

Even in the more rarified climes of academic discussion, the devil of censorship was doing its work behind the thin veneer of bogus integrity. In a November 18 meeting of the Harvard Law Review, editors (they number 104) voted by a majority to block the publication of a piece commissioned from human Palestinian human rights attorney and doctoral candidate, Rabea Eghbariah. The article asserted that the unfolding calamity in Gaza would satisfy the demanding threshold of genocide and that the Nakba, which involved the expulsion of Palestinians from their territories in 1948, deserved to be recognised as a crime.

Despite reviewing and checking the article for its factual content, the online chairs, Sabrina A. Ochoa and Tascha Shahriari-Parsa, were taken to task for, among other things, sidestepping standard editorial processes at the Law Review. This stiff and snotty reasoning suggests something else at play. It certainly did not impress some 125 law professors who signed an open letter raising matters of “censorship” and over 25 editors who, in a November 22 statement, found the decision threatening to “academic freedom and perpetuates the suppression of Palestinian voices.”

In The Harvard Crimson, the more revealing concerns of some editors who favoured preventing publication were noted. To publish the item would have put them at risk of a “public backlash or doxing” and that “these consequences would likely disproportionately fall on people of color at the Law Review.” Like censorship, a lack of courage is also manifold.

Within Israel itself, publications such as Haaretz are squarely within the government’s sights. Communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, drew up a proposal last month suggesting that official government notices would no longer be published in the paper. The proposal had not been vetted by the ministry’s legal advisor and would result in the halting of any payments to the paper from Israeli entities within his remit, including the cancellation of state employee subscriptions to the publication.

The reason was outlined in Karhi’s letter to Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs: “Since the beginning of the war, I have received many complaints that Haaretz has taken an offensive line which undermines the war’s goals and disparages the military effort and its social fortitude. It is possible that some of the paper’s publications even cross the criminal standard set in those far-flung sections of the penal code reserved for wartime only.”

The Israeli journalists’ union was unimpressed, pointing out that Karhi had spent much of his time in office trying to close the public broadcasting corporation. “His new proposal to end all government business with Haaretz is a populistic proposal devoid of any feasibility or logic, and its entire purpose is to garner likes among his political base at the expense of dedicated journalists who are working night and day right now to cover the war.” Despite possessing some momentum at this point, we can only hope that Karhi, and his ilk, will eventually stall before the blood-drenched realities of this conflict. Some hard-headed, brave news coverage would also be welcome.