Welcome to this throwback edition of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast

where we remember the past and choose to repeat it. Today's episode was originally

published on February 7th, 2018, and I'm playing it today as the war in Gaza continues,

because I think it provides good context for why I think it was right to oppose this war from the very beginning.

For me, the best reason to have opposed the invasion of Gaza had nothing to do with

whether Israel has the right to defend itself or any ridiculous conspiracy theories that were thrown around about October 7th.

It was about the history of the conflict, but not the deep history about judging the claims to the land or whatever. I just mean the history of how consistently

Israel goes overboard in the violence they inflict on Palestinians. There was a poll about a month ago saying that half of

US citizens then believed that Israel had gone quote too far in their war in

Gaza up from 40% at the beginning of November.

I'm sure that number will only continue to climb.

If you had polled me on October 7th, I would have said that Israel will go too far, and so everyone's just

catching up with that perspective. And it's not that I'm clairvoyant. I've just been paying attention.

Sources today include

CounterSpen, Democracy Now,

Intercepted, the majority report,

and the real news. Israeli soldiers shot 14 year old Palestinian Mohammed Tamimi

point blank in the face with a rubber jacketjacketed bullet on December 14th, 2017, in Nabisale, a small

village in the occupied West Bank.

The boy was placed in a medically induced coma. An hour later, Muhammad's 16 year old

cousin, Acheed Tamimi, slapped and kicked at an armed Israeli soldier in

the entrance to her family home.

...