Moral Abdication - (Verso Palestine Pamphlets) by Didier Fassin (Paperback)

About the Book

"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..."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"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

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.