On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched an offensive into southern Israel to irrevocably shatter an unsustainable status quo. While the crisis that has now persisted for an entire year did indeed erupt on that day, it had been decades in the making.
Israel's initial response was to unleash a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. Motivated by revenge and bloodlust, it was designed to not only kill and destroy on a massive scale but to make the Gaza Strip unfit for human habitation.
Genocide was the price Israel's western sponsors were prepared to pay for Israel to make an example of the Gaza Strip and, in so doing, to re-establish its shattered power of deterrence.
To ensure Israel could rampage through the Gaza Strip with impunity and escape any accountability for its actions, Israel's western sponsors and allies, led by the United States, willingly shredded the rulebook of international law and the norms and values that underpin it.
Each successive Israeli obliteration of yet another red line - the bombing and destruction of hospitals, schools, and refugee centres, the indiscriminate transformation of communications devices into hand grenades, and the killing and wounding of hundreds to rescue four captives - was justified as a legitimate act of self-defence.
In the process, the world has been transformed into a much more dangerous place for us all on the altar of Israeli impunity.....