The defence of self-defence

As Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza continues unabated after 11 months, the Labor Government recites ad infinitum its talking point, borrowed from the Biden/Harris playbook, that Israel has the right to defend itself, thereby legitimising its carpet-bombing and indiscriminate mass killing of Palestinian civilians. Treating the atrocities of 7 October as an isolated event that came out of the blue buttresses the self-defence line, de-contextualising it from decades of brutal subjugation of Palestinians, which have fuelled their resistance against the settler-colonial apartheid state.