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.”

  • archomrade [he/him]English
    71·
    8 months ago

    Liberalism specifically does not want a full monopoly on coercive power to be in the hands of any single system or institution.

    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.

    That you see that as some negative or flaw is simply representative of your own position

    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.