The west’s complete contempt for the lives of Palestinians will not be forgotten | Owen Jones

Our political and media elites are complicit in Gaza's nightmare. Any vestige of moral authority has been lost for ever

What is the value of a Palestinian life? For those retaining delusions not already buried in the rubble of Gaza alongside entire families - like the Zorobs, the Kashtans, the Attalahs - Joe Biden offered a definitive answer last week. In a statement marking 100 days since the current horror began, he rightly showed empathy for the plight of hostages - whose abduction by Hamas represents a grave war crime - and their traumatised families. Yet there was not a single mention of Palestinians.

That politicians and media outlets alike have not bothered to disguise their contempt for Palestinian life will prove consequential. Indeed, this phenomenon is not new, and those repercussions are now violently felt. If the world's powerful nations had not so brazenly shrugged off three-quarters of a million Palestinians being driven from their homes 76 years ago, accompanied by an estimated 15,000 suffering violent deaths, the seeds of today's bitter harvest would not have been planted. Political and media elites started as they meant to go on. How many know that last year, before the indefensible atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October, 234 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank alone, more than three dozen of them children? Life is cheap, they say. It is apparently meaningless if you are Palestinian.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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