Letter

In response to The world must stop the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza

US armed forces had the power to stop the massacre

I can only echo B’Tselem’s call.

If we set some sort of crude realpolitik calculus of maximum proportionate response to October 7 of 5000 Palestinian lives, then by late 2023, US forces, and if necessary others, should have been deployed to stop further escalation and prevent Israel implementing the Dahiya doctrine.

42000 lives would have been saved (175000 if the journal Nature estimate is correct), as well as many years of reconstruction, and no spread to Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.

Sadly, the Biden administration failed to take the lead and act to restore peace, and create the future that the UN wants for both Palestinians and Israelis, and still fails to do so.

— Geoff Taylor from Perth