The fate of the Palestinian people offers a warning about the future of humanity. When I recently visited the West Bank, Palestinians kept impressing the same point on me: Israel has turned their land into a laboratory. The technology of oppression that it has deployed – including in its genocide in Gaza – ranges from hi-tech surveillance to military drones and AI on the battlefield. These technologies have been exported to oppressive states across the world. And it doesn’t stop there.
This brings us to Donald Trump’s “board of peace”, now set to rule Gaza. In the sleepy Oxfordshire village of Sutton Courtenay, where George Orwell lies buried, the ground itself ought to be shaking. This isn’t peace. It’s naked neocolonialism.
Not a single seat is reserved for a Palestinian, let alone a survivor of Gaza. Trump will serve as chair in an individual capacity rather than as US president – in other words, as Gaza’s emperor. Its invited members include Tony Blair, who is despised across the Middle East as an architect of the illegal invasion of Iraq. If you’re curious about his skill set when it comes to rebuilding ravaged Arab territory, recall what the Chilcot inquiry concluded about that catastrophe: “the UK failed to plan or prepare for the major reconstruction programme required in Iraq”. ….more
