As Israel carpet bombs and levels a totally besieged Gaza, killing thousands of civilians, including more than three thousand children, Western media continues to use the “right of self-defense” mantra to shut down discussion of Israel’s ultimate responsibility — as occupier — for the situation in Palestine.

Enter United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres. Last week Guterres stated that Hamas’s heinous October 7 attacks “did not happen in a vacuum” and that “those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” He also explained that:

The Palestinian people have been subjected to fifty-six years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.