Re: The root of the rot of the root

It defies reason that you choose to take offence at my characterising your position as support for genocide. You have certainly in the past expressed support for Israel's military operation in Gaza, and this operation has been characterised as genocide by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and various Israeli human rights organizations, including B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel. In addition, the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has concluded that Israel has committed four of the five acts identified as characteristic of genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Leading international experts such as John Mearsheimer have come to the same conclusion. It is not as though the opinion I expressed is some sort of wild outlier, and I express it with disappointment and frustration, but not with personal rancour. I see no reason for offence taking. Of course, you are free to deny the conclusions of experts and scholars if you wish, just as your President denies the science of climate change, but there is no reason why sane men should be required to censor the expression of their opinions in order not to cause offence to those unwilling to face reality. It is regrettable that you do not wish to discuss these issues, because they really go to the heart of what I see as the contradiction in your world view, between your declarations in favour of human life on the one hand and your apparent support for an imperial machine of death on the other.