Note from The Echo
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been a consistent topic of letter writers to The Echo, even before the latest tragic events.
This newspaper was started when the local media refused to publish complaints of locals about the abuse of police power. Our ongoing commitment to publishing different, sometimes strong opinions, many that we don’t agree with, is why you’ll find the conflicting and contradictory opinions of our readers here. They aren’t our own opinions.
We can’t publish everything we receive, some submissions are not based in fact at all, some are defamatory or too offensive or just too crazy. But while some readers don’t think opinions they disagree with should be given any space in The Echo, we don’t. We publish opinions we disagree with, and we hope everyone will read them and consider their worth, because we believe that this is an essential part of a healthy democracy – to scrutinise ideas even if we choose to discard them.
War crimes in Gaza
Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza presents the US-led West with an ideal opportunity to double down on its double standards and demonstrate for the whole world to see its spectacular talent for appalling hypocrisy. We are witnessing the demise of Western hegemony.
In Ukraine, every civilian death is loudly decried as a war crime in the Western press and invariably blamed on Putin. Comprehensive sanctions were imposed on Russia, its foreign reserves were seized and the ICC was ordered to indict Putin on charges of transferring children out of the warzone.
But when it comes to Gaza, Western politicians have been loath to condemn Israel’s slaughter of civilians and reluctant to call for a ceasefire. The corporate media typically and predictably exhibits pro-Israel bias, peddling morally bankrupt narratives, like blaming Hamas for Israel’s actions, while American warmongers cheer on their imperial outpost in the Middle East.
In my opinion, on October 7, whether due to failure, incompetence, or some other reason affecting Israeli defences, Palestinian fighters managed to break out of their concentration camp and give the Zionist occupation regime a tiny taste of its own medicine, killing and capturing some of their oppressors.
As I see it, this unprecedented operation supplied the pretext for Netanyahu to unleash indiscriminate and disproportionate force, razing Gaza in furtherance of the Zionist project. His enabler in Washington, a partner in collective punishment, could end the killing with a single phone call but instead vows unconditional support for Israel.
It looks like Washington, humiliated by its failure to weaken Russia in Ukraine, hopes to restore its self-esteem by defeating the defenceless Palestinians. But just like its counterpart in Tel Aviv, Washington lacks the capacity to foresee that the reputational damage it inflicts on itself will do far more harm to Israel than Hamas ever could.
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. 
