John Scrivener, Main Arm
The Zionist regime doesn’t like being criticised for maintaining its brutal and illegal military occupation of Palestine. It doesn’t like being criticised for routinely torturing and murdering Palestinians, incarcerating their children, demolishing their homes, uprooting their orchards, poisoning their water and stealing their land. They treat the Palestinians this way, with complete impunity, but that’s not enough – they believe their treatment of the Palestinians must also be free from any criticism.
The double standard is glaringly obvious, Palestinians are expected to suffer in silence, whatever pain is inflicted on them, but Zionist Israel must not suffer even justified criticism.
Their ability to silence critics, and cover up their crimes, permits them to continue committing war crimes and human rights violations unhindered. In their latest effort to silence critics, the Zionist lobby seeks to criminalise criticism of Israel by way of anti-BDS (Anti-Boycott Act) legislation. They have had some success in the US, where support for Israel is obligatory and unconditional, as it is here. In the long run, such efforts will only intensify the criticism and fuel opposition to Israel’s war crimes and human rights atrocities.
A far more effective response to the criticism levelled at Israel would be to simply stop committing the war crimes, and the gross human rights abuses, that provoke the criticism in the first place.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
