George Scialabba in The New Statesman:
“The 7 October attack by Hamas was morally barbarous and strategically futile. Nothing justifies the killing of innocents, not even the denial of a people’s nationhood for 75 years, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of them to make way for colonial settlers, or the killing of thousands of their own innocents in scandalously disproportionate ‘reprisals’. And as for strategy, for the weak (and not only for them), nothing is less efficacious than such violence, which makes trust – the only reliable basis of lasting security – impossible. Better a people should suffer another 75 years of dispossession than that another such crime be committed in its name. Of course, those who would allow this people to go without justice for another 75 years, and who allowed it to go without justice for the last 75 years, share the murderers’ guilt, and with far less excuse.”
No one asked me for a public statement after the Hamas raid. If anyone had, this is roughly what I would have said, and I’ve used it as a kind of template in reacting to the innumerable public statements, solicited and unsolicited, that I’ve encountered since the event.
More here.