One line of comments stood out for me as I reacquaint myself with Thought Leader. It stood out because of its callousness. In response to an article by David Saks a commentator called Michael Liermann writes:

Yes, surely there will be no peace in the Middle East until Palestinians stop ruthlessly damaging IDF rifle-butts with their faces.

To which, David Saks responds as follows:

Michael Liermann — Right. Not to mention how Israeli soldiers stick their bayonets into the bellies of pregnant Palestinian babies.

(In case you wondering, David Saks reply is copied correctly. Ask him why he uses the word “babies” instead of “mothers”.)

Now I can complain about the insensitivity and callousness, point out the various reports detailing war crimes in Gaza and vehemently object to this caustic rendering of the Palestinian struggle as melodrama. However, that is a stance for a blog post on another day. For today, I cannot wait to be accused of selectively quoting, and other misdemeanours (including distorting history, misunderstanding Middle East history etc, etc). But rather for today ponder the following observation:

Is the exchange recorded above not the contemporary equivalent of someone arrogantly saying during a food shortage: “If there is no bread, let them eat cake!”?

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Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen

Ebrahim-Khalil is an independent public policy analyst and is Chief Editorial Officer (CEO) of Zapreneur - a platform to debate economic transformatiom in South Africa.

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