Message to an Israeli soldier

Your murderous assault against 2.2 million men, women and children of Gaza you have been waging now for five long months. Launched in response to the killing rage of an occupied, besieged and oppressed people, whose killing rage is the child of your own as their oppressor, it has wrought unprecedented devastation and carnage.

Starved, besieged, yet unbowed, the Palestinians of Gaza can do nothing except endure as your bombs and your missiles rain down on them, targeting hospitals, schools, civic buildings, homes, police stations, and even UN compounds where people sought sanctuary — still believing, despite decades of disappointment and betrayal, in the sanctity and protection of international law.

Your bombs have sought and found their victims, incinerating and blowing to smithereens young and old alike, at the same time as your government attempts to convince the world that every effort has been made to avoid civilian casualties in what you have the gall to describe as a military operation to root out terrorism and provide security for your citizens. Yet as Albert Camus once warned, the welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants.

Israel has the right to defend itself, you and your supporters in the West tirelessly claim. This in what amounts to a perverse justification of genocidal slaughter. But what of the Palestinians…