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The massacre of Israelis by Hamas terrorists on October 7th 2023 was the most dreadful slaughter inflicted upon the Jews since the Nazi Holocaust. In the immediate aftermath, Israel found itself fighting an existential war on seven fronts. The Western World might have been expected to rally behind Israel - the only liberal representative democracy in the Middle East. However, progressive public opinion in the West, in academia and among student bodies, the left of centre press, radio, and TV all turned upon Israel in a tidal wave of anti-Zionism. Israel was itself accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. This was a modern form of medieval antisemitic blood-libels. What was distinctive about this novel transmutation of antisemitism was that it was left-wing, post-modernist, neo-Marxist. It was the denial of the very legitimacy of the State of Israel. Hacker offers illuminating explanations of this puzzling phenomenon. The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court both condemned Israel for violations of international law - decisions that were demonstrably biassed and illicit. Hacker's meticulously researched discussion unravels the history of the Israel/Palestinian conflict, describes the successive Israeli offers of a Palestinian state on the West Bank that were rejected by corrupt Palestinian leaders who betrayed their own people, tells the sorry history of the Gaza Strip and the death-cult ideology of its elected Hamas rulers, analyses the commonly misunderstood requirements of international law, scrutinizes the pivotal role of the Iranian theocratic state in the war, and probes beneath the glib demand for recognition of a Palestinian state. This book will appeal to those interested in the Hamas massacre, the Gaza war, the Israel/Hezbollah war, and Iran/Israel war, antisemitism and its history, anti-Zionism and left-wing intellectuals in the West.
List of contents
1. October 7, 2023 2. Anti-Zionism 3. Antisemitism: a historical sketch 4. The Aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust 5. The Gaza Strip 6. Accusations: genocide, apartheid, neo-colonialism, racialism, and violations of international law 7. Explaining the Public and the Student Responses 8. Addendum: The Response to the Israel - Iran War
About the author
P. M. S. Hacker is Emeritus Fellow in Philosophy, St. John's College, Oxford, UK.
