This was one way in which public opinion could be prepared for large death tolls that dwarfed Hamas’s murder of civilians in Israel. It was a way of telling its readership not to be swayed by the size of the civilian death toll because it wasn’t, as Americans like to say, dispositive. The next step was to discredit the death toll itself. To watch charter members of the rules-based world order legitimise the collective punishment of the Palestinian population in Gaza has been an education. If anything good is to emerge from this dreadful war, let it be the death of Western doublespeak.

Source: The Telegraph October 29, 2023 09:33 UTC