Video footage broadcast Wednesday by Al Jazeera shows Israeli soldiers gunning down two Palestinians on the coast of northern Gaza, even as one of them waves what appears to be a piece of white fabric. The video then shows Israeli soldiers burying the bodies with a bulldozer.
Richard Falk, former United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, toldAl Jazeera that the footage provides “vivid confirmation of continuing Israeli atrocities” and spotlights the “unambiguous character of Israeli atrocities that are being carried out on a daily basis.”
“The eyes and ears of the world have been assaulted in real-time by this form of genocidal behavior,” said Falk. “It is a shocking reality that there has been no adverse reaction from the liberal democracies in the West. It is a shameful moment.”
Not that shocking, really. Liberalism would be self-determination everywhere, not the west protecting the world and instituting its own values. If someone somewhere else wants to operate under a different set of values where human life is not considered important, a liberal does not go over there and fix them.
Liberalism is not inherently “good”, it’s inherently hands-off. Like the Swiss. This is partly why its become somewhat out-dated as an ideology post-WW2. Expecting someone who believes in liberty to control the fates of lands and peoples not their own is misunderstanding it though. That’s not liberty, it’s the spreading exertion of power and influence–the opposite of liberty.
Liberty doesn’t defend anything except itself. This is the root of US isolationism tendencies, and why hating the UN is so common here.
It is absolutely not ‘hands-off’, it just denies the existence of externalized power structures inherent in capital and neo-colonialism and uses them to exert influence instead of (or in addition to, rather) the old imperialist tools of direct violence. It hides behind the rhetoric of self-determination while exerting its corrupting influence through capital and soft-power.
Liberalism is a delusion of neutrality and a scourge to liberty everywhere.
No, that’s just communist ideology trying to demonize everything that isn’t itself.
Actual liberty does not inherently guarantee freedom from all oppression, as that would be an institution from a higher authority. It gives a certain liberty to oppress, which is why it so often exists hand-in-hand with capitalism. To do otherwise would require some form of authority to prevent oppression, which contradicts the core idea.
This is another facet of the post-WW2 reasons it has become somewhat out-dated. Also, note, I’m talking about the core of the ideology, not its history of implementation by flawed men. Similar to how I would not try to criticize Marxist ideology by looking at everyone who has claimed to be a communist.
It’s not an ideological statement to observe that liberalism abdicates the power of state governance to economic and capitalistic structures, nor is it ideological to observe that economic structures can -and do- wield just as much coercive power over individuals, states, and institutions as any state structure can.
However, asserting that “liberalism is inherently hands-off” is an ideological statement, because it pretends as if market and capital systems and structures are somehow outside of its responsibility even though those structures are central to its functioning as conceived by Locke and Hobbes.
To pretend as if the US’s economic power is some kind of aberration of ‘true liberalism’ is just absurd, though not surprising because I doubt Hobbes or Locke could have imagined the scale of influence and domination a liberal democracy like the United States now enjoys.
Partial abdication, I’ll grant that. What is ideological is to assume that something else exhibiting coercive power is some inherent negative. Liberalism specifically does not want a full monopoly on coercive power to be in the hands of any single system or institution. Instead it spreads it out.
That you see that as some negative or flaw is simply representative of your own position. Many institutions wielding coercive power is not inherently dangerous, just perhaps inefficient.
But it does nothing to prevent it from accumulating, and does even less to prevent a state from accumulating too much power. A sovereign state that is dependent on the economic support of another that is 50+ times its size is no more free from tyranny than one living under the imperialist occupation of a monarch.
I don’t see anything negative about spreading power into as many hands as possible, but I’m not delusional enough to believe liberalism can achieve that if it ignores the inherent power in capital.
Liberalism was foundational to transitioning away from monarchical power, but was simply ill-equipped (possibly intentionally so) to anticipate the inevitable failures caused by ignoring/denying the existence of power exercised through capital and the accumulation thereof.
I can agree with that.
Good read, thanks guys.
Did you really say exhibiting coercive power isn’t inherently negative? I’d say in both imperialism and Neocolonialism it certainly is as it’s used to exploit the global south population and resources at their expense.
No, I said: What is ideological is to assume that something else exhibiting coercive power is some inherent negative.
It can certainly be considered negative. Considering it so is ideological, however.
I don’t see how exhibiting coercive power can be considered positive or neutral, especially in the context of imperialism or neocolonialism
That’s fine. My point is that other ideologies would disagree. Fascism, for instance, is an ideology where coercive power is considered positive.
But then you can’t call the US a liberal democracy in any way as they aren’t hands-off at all. Time and time again they meddle in other countries’ business to exert influence and power and to advance their interests.
Israel itself was created by the West as Palestine was a British colony before and the US has since given more support to Israel than they would usually grant an ally. The continuous protection (political and militaristic) makes Israel almost a vassal state of the US. This is the real reason why “liberal democracies” have not reacted much (yet, hopefully).
Before we low-key split from Pakistan, they had a similar symbiotic/parasitic relation as the US does with Israel. Seen as a good ally/possible partner diplomatically and with military utility for bases and CENTCOM power projection. And though Pakistan was never really ‘on side’ for a couple of reasons, they kept themselves under the radar and out of our ire - until we found Taliban militants regularly getting refuge and medical care over the Afghan-Pak border, and capped off with discovering Bin Laden in Pakistan.
Israel is hardly a ‘vassal’ or even protectorate. The US has significant leverage, but Israel has remained cordial with Russia and China even if that means snubbing the US - Israel refused to export anti-ship and cruise missiles to Ukraine, in deference to Chinese and Russian interests. Israel has options now to split from the US (painful as it may be) unlike in the 60/70s when the Soviets were funneling weapons to Egypt and Syria, and Israel required US support.
All that to say, Israel can (and may yet) tell the US to kick rocks again, and I don’t think the west is ready for the reality of what enforcing a ceasefire/no-fly zone would mean.
This “vassal state” nonsense is a common meme, but that’s about it. If it really was one, they’d listen to us.
And agreed, which is why I said that post-WW2, liberalism has been growing out-dated. It doesn’t make much sense in a world of global communications, trade and warfare, so some evolution was, and continues to be, required. Otherwise it risks exchanging military imperialism for economic imperialism, where instead of conquering other lands you simply profit off of their people and resources.
There is nothing about Liberalism that excludes this practice as anything but an inevitability.
Inevitability? Not so sure about that, though the steps necessary to combat it could be construed as a departure from liberalism. Specific laws to prevent it, basically.
If you agree that liberalism does nothing to prevent the accumulation of power, how does liberalism not inevitably lead to economic imperialism? Honest question.
It really just seems like liberalism is being used here as a way to white-wash what is by most measures an extremely broken system.
With lawmaking. Our problem is that companies have acquired an outsized degree of power, including over the election system itself. The solution would be to break them, as we have done in the past. Certain behaviors need to be prohibited for the good of the country.
No system is immune to descent into tyranny of some form or another. Its enforcement mechanisms to prevent that need to be used appropriately though.
I’m happy that you see this, but I wish you could see how that accumulation happens. A system that doesn’t have a way of addressing or acknowledging power differentials begotten by the accumulation of capital is bound to lead to that inevitability. And that doesn’t even address the GEOPOLITICAL problems we started with. How the fuck does liberalism address the gigantic power differential of the United States against literally every other country on the planet?
Liberalism assumes that individuals entering into agreement are on equal footing. It ignores the coercive conditions of capital (between individuals and between nation states) and preaches ‘self-determination’.
Geopolitical power disparities will exist for as long as different value sets and systems exist. I don’t think it would be wise to even attempt to do away with them. Do remember, the sole purposes of the state from antiquity onward was to offer security against organized violence. Something must do so.
Regarding the fix for the domestic issues, again, that’s the breakup of concentrated capital. We had similar issues in the 19th century, and you can look at the reforms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to see how we addressed them. We can do so again, and probably should pretty soon here.
It’s not that I’m unaware of the challenges we face, or inherent weaknesses of our system. My position is that it is difficult to solve them without simply becoming vulnerable to a different form of tyranny. It takes many forms, yes? With the oldest simply being people coming to kill you and take your stuff, as the Gazans and Ukrainians, among others, are currently experiencing.
The problem with that is in perception, ie: the US sees Israel as a vassal state but Israel sees themselves in an “equal” partnership. Therefore why would they feel they had to obey America?
I don’t think the US sees them as a vassal state. Otherwise they probably would’ve been doing quite a bit of fighting for us in Afghanistan and Vietnam.
What is so hard to understand about the relationship known as “alliance”, and how it means you are “allies”? Seems much more accurate than all this vassal state propaganda.
You think the US supports Israel despite their engagement in genocide simply on principle? You think there’s no material benefit to the US?
The classic hands off approach of sending israel weapons and money to commit Genocide with.
Sometimes, yes. Genocide prevention is not the job of military alliances, unfortunately. If it was, there’d be far less organized killing in the world.
That’s so smart and realpolitik wow.
The contracts state that if a party commits war crimes America isn’t allowed to deliver them weapons so you’re also dead wrong.
Yes, in more recent years that was made law, and we should start to abide by it.
But it’s not “smart” and “realpolitik” to simply acknowledge what a military alliance is. That’s just agreement of basic definitions. Depending on who we have in office, our tolerance for war crimes and following laws changes dramatically.
“The law is not relevant if it’s not convenient”