Michael Halila 🏳️⚧️
So there's a country in the Middle East that has a nuclear arsenal, is conducting a genocide in the territories it illegally occupies, and is invading or bombing at least three other countries.
When this country mounts an unprovoked surprise attack on a fourth country and murders hundreds of civilians, our leaders line up to tell us that actually, it's the victims of all these attacks that are the threats to peace.
The hypocrisy is so brutal. They're showing us exactly how the system works.
Michael Halila 🏳️⚧️
At times like these, it is incredibly important to remember that the peoples, cultures and faiths of what we now call the Middle East have lived together in peace for centuries.
We are being fed a story of eternal irreconcilable hatreds to stop us from seeing what's really happening. That the violence we see today is rooted in 20th-21st century imperial exploitation.
Don't fall for the racist, Orientalist lies.
Michael Halila 🏳️⚧️
I agree that the Middle East is locked in a spiral of violence, or however the talking heads are going to put it this time.
I don't agree with the racist lie that this is somehow an intrinsic, permanent feature of the area.
The cause of the violence is a century of European and American imperialism, settler colonialism, exploitation and war.
Stop the bombing, stop the ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism. It is the only way to a lasting peace.
Michael Halila 🏳️⚧️
If we want to talk about the deeper roots of these conflicts, let's do it.
Let's talk about a century of colonialism. Of merciless exploitation by European countries, by oil companies and "strategic interests".
Let's talk about a settler colonial state founded by ethnic cleansing, whose basic security policy is endless war against its neighbors and territorial expansion.
Let's talk about a superpower that regularly invades and bombs the area, and leaves pure chaos in its wake.
Michael Halila 🏳️⚧️
It just feels so mindbendingly stupid to wake up to a lovely summer day in 2025, and see that Israel is invading its neighbors and the Americans are bombing a country in the Middle East because they've decided it has weapons of mass destruction.
C'mon bro, just one more war. Just one more surgical bombing campaign, one more brutal Israeli invasion. If we just kill some more Palestinians and bulldoze a couple more villages. It'll be peace, bro. I promise.
Michael Halila 🏳️⚧️
It's also very difficult to understand what the strategic rationale of any of this is even supposed to be.
Israel is starving Gaza, ethnically cleansing the West Bank, fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, occupying Syria, bombing Yemen and is now at war with Iran.
What does victory in any of these conflicts look like for Israel? Is the strategic vision behind all of this simply that if they murder enough people, somehow peace will break out?
Michael Halila 🏳️⚧️
These are the same leaders who've spent years telling us that an unprovoked attack on another country is an unspeakable atrocity, and that bombing civilians is a terrible war crime. When Russia does it.
When Israel murders civilians in cold blood and starts yet another war of pure aggression, all of a sudden they're here to tell us how Israel has a right to defend itself.
This would be easier for those of us following along at home if they'd specify which countries are allowed to bomb others.
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