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Moral Abdication: How the World Failed to Stop the Destruction of Gaza Paperback – 7 January 2025
by Didier Fassin (Author), Gregory Elliott (Translator)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (13)
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Western governments and elites have supported the destruction of Gaza, silencing the Palestinians and those who speak on their behalf.
Providing a record of the first six months of the war waged by the Israeli army after the 7 October attacks and drawing on a rich range of international sources, Didier Fassin examines how most Western governments have acquiesced in and often contributed to the destruction, by the Israeli army, of Gaza, its homes, infrastructures, hospitals, institutions of education, and civilian population. To justify their support and prevent criticism, they have provided an official version of the events, adopting the Israeli narrative. It was largely taken up by mainstream media, which ignored the experiences and perspectives of Palestinians. Dissenting voices were silenced. A policing of language and thought was imposed. Censorship and self-censorship became normalized. To call for a ceasefire or to demand the respect of humanitarian law was enough to prompt the ever-ready accusation of antisemitism. Exploring the multiple dimensions of the extreme inequality of lives between the two sides of the conflict and analyzing the complex geopolitical, economic and ideological stakes that underlie it, Fassin intends to constitute an archive of this moral abdication. In his view, the abandonment of the values and principles proclaimed by Western elites to be foundational will leave a deep scar in the history of the world.
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"One of the outcomes of the ongoing genocide in Gaza has been a total collapse of any semblance of moral authority on the part of the West...Didier Fassin's book surveys this moral abdication, focusing on how many western states and institutions have actively consented to the destruction of Gaza, particularly by obstructing and criminalising Palestinian solidarity. By foregrounding students and other activists who have defended the basic rights of Palestinians, the book also seeks to 'attest to the existence of a refusal, shared by many, of consent to the obliteration of Gaza'."
--Irish Times
"[A] powerful book...How is it possible, Fassin asks, that with rare exceptions, 'for political leaders and intellectual personalities of the principal Western countries...the lives of Palestinian civilians are worth several hundred times less than the lives of Israeli civilians'? How do we explain why 'demonstrations and meetings demanding a just peace are banned'? Why is it that 'without independent confirmation, most of the mainstream Western media quasi-automatically reproduce the version of events relayed by the camp of the occupiers, while incessantly casting doubt on that recounted by the occupied'? Why do 'so many of those who could have spoken, not to say stood up in opposition, avert their eyes from the annihilation of a territory, its history, its monuments, its hospitals, its schools, its housing, its infrastructure, its roads, and its inhabitants--in many cases, even encouraging its continuation'?"
--Omer Bartov, The New York Review of Books
Book Description
How most Western governments and elites have supported the destruction of Gaza and silenced voices calling for the rights of Palestinians
About the Author
Anthropologist, sociologist and physician, Didier Fassin is a professor at the Collège de France, where he holds the chair Moral Questions and Social Issues in Contemporary Societies, and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is also a director of study at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has conducted research in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and France. He is the author of twenty-three books, which have been translated into nine languages. A recipient of the Gold Medal in Anthropology and the Nomis Distinguished Scientist Award, he is a member of the American Philosophical Society and a former Vice-President of Médecins Sans Frontières.
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Moral Abdication: How the World Failed to Stop the Destruction of Gaza
Moral Abdication: How the World Failed to Stop the Destruction of Gaza
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Publisher : Verso
Publication date : 7 January 2025
Language : English
Print length : 128 pages
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Profile Image for Kaggelo.
Kaggelo
51 reviews
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December 6, 2024
Είναι συγκλονιστικά όσα γράφει ο Fassin σε αυτή την βαθιά και πολύπλευρη μελέτη για την γενοκτονία της Γάζας. Πέρα από την απόλυτα διαυγή, ψύχραιμη και επιστημονικά τεκμηριωμένη καταγραφή όλων των κρίσιμων γεγονότων, των αντίκτυπων αυτών, τις παγκόσμιες αντιδράσεις και τον τρόπο παρουσίασης από τα μμε, η κορύφωση της μελέτης βρίσκεται στα δύο τελευταία κεφάλαια όπου δίνονται πειστικές απαντήσεις για το πιο μεγάλο και δραματικό ερώτημα που αιωρείται πάνω από όλη την Δύση. Γιατί υπάρχει αυτή η σε τόσο μεγάλο βαθμό συναίνεση στον αφανισμό ενός ολόκληρου λαού;
Μέσα σε αυτό τον καθημερινό καταιγισμό ανακριβούς πληροφόρησης, ανελέητης προπαγάνδας, διαστρέβλωσης των γεγονότων και αντιστροφής της πραγματικότητας, ο Fassin μας προσφέρει με αυτή την πολύτιμη μελέτη, μια όαση γνώσης και αλήθειας και μας βοηθάει να κατανοήσουμε τα πως και τα γιατί μιας φρικτής και απάνθρωπης καταστροφής, και κυρίως να κατανοήσουμε αυτό που σε κάθε σκεπτόμενο άνθρωπο φαίνεται παράλογο, αδιανόητο και σοκαριστικό. Γιατί δεν δίνεται ένα τέλος σε αυτό το νέο Ολοκαύτωμα του 21ου αιώνα που εξελίσσεται μπροστά στις οθόνες των κινητών μας σε live μετάδοση;
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Sweet Jane
166 reviews
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December 16, 2024
Εύχομαι να μην χρειαζόταν ποτέ να διαβάσω αυτό το εξαιρετικό κείμενο.
2024
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Julian Worker
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February 7, 2025
This is a superb book that we all should read.
96 pages of carefully researched thoughts and observations supported by 26 pages of reference notes that show how history will record the support of nations in the destruction of Gaza.
It's the same with the so-called mainstream media who are as complicit as those nations in their support of the destruction of Gaza. The book also provides a great list of independent media who provided information in a neutral tone free from the language of the Israeli government. This independent media also allowed Palestinian voices to be heard, provided analyses independent of Western public authorities, and made enquiries into 'facts' which the mainstream media did not question.
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Randall Wallace
683 reviews
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June 6, 2025
Charles de Gaulle back when he was General in 1967, explained Israel’s immediate colonial designs then: that Israel “is now organizing occupation on the territory it has seized. This cannot proceed without oppression, repression and expulsion, and without the emergence of resistance to it, which in turn it categorizes as terrorism.” The Dahiya Doctrine, is Israel’s chosen mode of asymmetrical warfare – think “one thousand eyes for an eye” – the opposite of what Jesus or the Golden Rule would say. We can see the Doctrine in action well before October 7th: kill one of ours and we’ll kill many of yours - in 2008 during Operation Cast Lead, 318 children were killed in Gaza but none in Israel. In 2014 Operation Protective Edge, 551 children were killed in Gaza and 1 killed in Israel. In fact, “the mortality rate for children is 1,850 times higher for Palestinians (than Israelis - p.57).” Combating “terrorism” a.k.a. resistance by committing terrorism? Rogue States these days have a nice trick: they brand their own terrorism as counter-terrorism, so only those who resist your illegal use of force are the terrorists. It’s good to be King! Lev Luis Grinberg of the Israeli Sociological Society said, “Palestinian resistance is in a catch; when it uses violence it is oppressed, and when it uses diplomatic negotiations, it is ignored.”
“Language is damaged when demands to stop killing civilians are ‘antisemitic’, (and) when an army that dehumanizes its enemies is ‘moral’.” “Thinking is suffocated when debates are prevented, lectures are banned and exhibitions cancelled, when the police enter institutions of higher education and prosecutors are imposed to ensure orthodoxy.” A poll in France in 2021 found that ant-Muslim racism was reported twice as much as antisemitism (p.84). Did you notice that the “obliteration of Gaza” requires the “consent of Western countries”? Explain this: the “Ukrainian exiles fleeing the Russian invasion, who were generously welcomed, and the Afghan exiles fleeing Taliban repression, who were brutalized at the Greek, Croatian and Hungarian borders.” As of 2024, since 1946 the US has given Israel $310 billion – today we US taxpayers give Israel 71% of its foreign aid. Hey, be realistic - genocides don’t just pay for themselves! If our elected officials followed our US laws (the Leahy Law) we couldn’t give Israel ANY military aid because it obviously is committing “flagrant human rights violations.” Luckily for fans of ethnic cleansing & settler-colonialism, the first concern of our elected officials is getting reelected – not moral quibbling.
Pause to reflect: During WWII, the German people sucked up to Nazism, the French people under Vichy immediately sucked up to Nazism – they all actively collaborated with Nazism. Now fast forward to today: The German and French governments are STILL sucking up to Fascism, as if in a contest today to see which former center of fascism could be more obsequious and servile to fascist trainee Israel. The President of Namibia pointed out in 2021 when Germany finally acknowledged its 1904 genocide in Namibia, Germany’s double standard with “atonement for the genocide in Namibia, while supporting the equivalent of genocide in Gaza.” That of course was before October 7th. “A favorable image of Israel declined by more than 18% on average in the 43 largest countries on the planet between September and December 2023.”
“It has been documented by Israeli journalists and a Palestinian organization that it was the IDF who used Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields, sending them to search tunnels and buildings where they suspected that bombs may be hidden and forcing them to walk in front of the tanks in the street to avoid being attacked (p.40)”. Journalist Hanin Majadhi says, “in the past six months, the number of prisoners who have died in Israeli torture camps is four times greater than the number of prisoners who died in Guantanamo over twenty years.” Hanin knows of prisoners whose hands and feet were amputated because of gangrene caused by handcuffs. Quick – we need a Zionist who can spin that into the sacred Jewish values of Tikkun Olam in action! I have Facebook friends who once a month post how it’s SO scary to be Jewish outside of Israel right now, meanwhile, this book says, “in France “Islamophobic acts multiplied threefold in the fourth quarter of 2023 (p.55).” All this comes down to “one life being worth less than another.”
After October 7th, a memorandum was sent to New York Times journalists to not use the words “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, “refugee camps” and “occupied territories”, or even Palestine – and you shouldn’t use “slaughter”, “massacre” or “carnage” unless it was about October 7th (p.62). In Mainstream Media, the word slaughter was dutifully used 60 times more about dead Israelis than dead Palestinians. Zionists love to point at the original over-the-top Hamas Charter while knowing full well that it was replaced by a very reasonable Charter in 2016 – but these same Zionists do not want you to notice the obvious similarity between the first extreme Hamas Charter and the Likud 1977 Platform (from 11 years earlier) which said, “Between the Sea and the Jordan, there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” The origin of “from the river to the sea” for those who care, was back in the 60’s “when the PLO employed it with a view to a single state where Arabs, Jews, and Christians could live in peace, in accordance with the wish expressed by Yassar Arafat before the UN General Assembly (p.74).” Thus, the original purpose and meaning of “river to the sea” was NOT that of conquest (Likud 1977 Platform) but was that of peace. Imagine mainstream media telling you any of this.
The author’s thesis in this book is “in pursuing its project of the destruction of Gaza and its inhabitants, the Israeli government damages its country’s image a little more every day and, consequently, also the image of its allies.” Meanwhile all my rabid Zionist friends disagree, if you think ANY Israeli has ever in history knowingly committed a crime, you must get ALL your info from Hamas or you hate/despise ALL Jews (even though millions of Jews are clearly non-Zionist). In fact, I only first learned about the Israel/Palestine issue from my Jewish friends (like Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman) and many Jewish authors. This was my 77th Israel/Palestine book I have reviewed just since October 7th, 2023, so I’m gaining a comic clarity about the always deflecting, propagandizing bullet-point Hasbara by those around me who won’t read one book unless recommended by Michael Rapport, Noa Tishby, or Alan Dershowitz. This was a good book by Didier and I’m glad to have read it.
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foteini_dl
581 reviews
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December 27, 2024
Η νηφαλιότητα και η ειλικρίνεια είναι δύο χαρακτηριστικά (ακόμα και αρετές, θα έλεγαν κάποιες και κάποιοι) που δεν επικρατούν στον δημόσιο λόγο. Ευτυχώς, δίνουν βροντερό παρών στις σελίδες αυτού του βιβλίου.
Ο Φασέν μάς θυμίζει (ή μαθαίνει, ανάλογα την περίπτωση) ότι ο αφανισμός της Γάζας δεν ξεκίνησε τον Οκτώβρη του '23, αλλά μετράει πολλά, πολλά χρόνια, ενώ παρουσιάζει τις πρακτικές (πολύ εύστοχη η παρατήρηση για τα ΜΜΕ) και την ανοχή της Δύσης και καταρρίπτει ένα προς ένα τα επιχειρήματα που ακούμε και διαβάζουμε από όσες και όσους στηρίζουν ουσιαστικά τη γενοκτονία.
Λίγες σελίδες, μεγάλο συναισθηματικό βάρος.
politics
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Sofia Bahia
187 reviews
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May 21, 2026
é muito bem sucedido na empreitada de criar um arquivo, ainda que incompleto (publicado em setembro de 24), dos horrores que acontecem em gaza antes e depois do 7 de outubro. apesar de não sentir que estava lendo algo novo, foi bom ter vários dos argumentos, citações e estatísticas reunidos em um livro só. é um bom presente pra alguém que quer entender mais, ou como leitura introdutória
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Profile Image for s.labajova.
s.labajova
32 reviews
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June 29, 2025
Stručná, no výstižná analýza toho, ako Západ ostáva byť zaslepený svojou vinou, jazykom, islamofóbiou a peniazmi. Morálny relativizmus, ktorý zbavuje ľudskosti a kritického myslenia, a ktorý v konečnom dôsledku môže spôsobiť stratu výnimočnej kultúry a národa.
“V krátkodobom horizonte môžu dejiny tvoriť víťazi ale v dlhodobej perspektíve vyviera porozumenie histórií zo strany porazených.”
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Profile Image for Guillaume MrMn.
Guillaume MrMn
54 reviews
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September 16, 2024
Une réflexion critique et nécessaire pour comprendre les enjeux à Gaza, la souffrance des palestiniens et le silence de l'Occident face à ce génocide.
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Martin Chudik
47 reviews
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September 24, 2025
Simple and devastating.
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Malcolm
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March 13, 2025
Didier Fassin’s unpacking of the adoption by governments, media, commentators, and analysts across the minority and large parts of the majority world of Israel’s justification for its war on Gaza is sharp and incisive. He explores the principle of the right to self defence, highlighting the asymmetry of political and military power between Israel and the Palestinian people, the continuing occupation and colonial oppression of Palestine and its people by Israel, the suppression of dissident voices both in Israel and among those supportive states, and the military aid provided by states such as the USA, France, Germany, the UK and others. In doing so he exposes the moral vacuity that claim to self-defence, and the actions of those states sustaining the Israeli narrative.
Less a book than a pamphlet, this is far from the final word on the destruction of Gaza – but it is a vital intervention and one that should be engaged with, built on, and developed as the future of Gaza and Palestine more generally is in the public eye.
apartheid
colonialism-post-colonialism
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