Israel is rightly known for its technological prowess, not least when it comes to making war.
A recent article in The Guardian argues that Israel appears set to secure a new warfare breakthrough, “holocide – the complete destruction of every aspect of life in Gaza”.
George Monbiot explains how this has come to pass in a rather terrifying article entitled: “Israel’s ecocide in Gaza sends this message: even if we stopped dropping bombs, you couldn’t live here.”
Monbiot begins by asking readers to “consider the annihilation of agricultural land alongside the genocide – and grasp the chilling totality of this attempt to eliminate all life. A landless people and a peopleless land: these, it appears, are the aims of the Israeli Government in Gaza. There are two means by which they are achieved. The first is the mass killing and expulsion of the Palestinians. The second is rendering the land uninhabitable. Alongside the crime of genocide, another great horror unfolds: ecocide.”
An incontestable review of how Israel has deliberately laid waste to every system (natural and man-made) supporting basic life in Gaza, over the last two years, follows.
Monbiot also highlights the appalling degree to which the impact of armed force activity is excluded from normal environmental accountability:
“Its footprint, even in peacetime, is enormous. The Conflict and Environment Observatory estimates that the world’s armed forces produce roughly 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet partly as a result of lobbying by the US Government, they are exempted from mandatory reporting under the Paris climate agreement. Nor are they properly held to account for their vast range of other environmental harms, from deforestation to pollution, soil destruction to unregulated dumping.”
And what about President Trump’s grotesque plan to remake Gaza for occupation by wealthy elites:
“If the eventual plan is to create a “Gaza Riviera” or a similar scheme to build an eerie elite technopolis stripped of place and history, of the kind that Donald Trump and some senior Israeli politicians favour – well, who needs trees or soil or crops for that? There is no cost to the perpetrators. Or not, at least, until they are brought to justice.”
Recommended reading.
The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.
Richard Cullen is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. He was previously a Professor in the Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.