No one should have to live in fear. Death by airstrike, death by rocket. Same result. I cannot even imagine having to deal with every day life in Gaza, especially if I had children.
“I am used to the bombings, but my children are worried. So I have to keep reassuring them.” Explaining what is happening in the skies to children sometimes proves difficult for some Palestinian parents. “When my child becomes scared I try to pacify her,” said Yasir Fatih. “I tell her the noise is far away and it’s not dangerous. Or sometimes I tell her it’s not real, it’s a game.”
One hell of a bogeyman no?
Of course the situation is complex, of course there is aggression from both parties. The violence being perpetrated though, should not be thought as a war between equals. If there ever was a case of David vs Goliath it would be the situation of Hamas versus the IDF.
We have different labels for similar situations…this comment from DierYassin summarized nicely how varied the world stage is.
“Facing international opprobrium over apartheid, Pretoria angrily asked why the world was focusing on them when far more serious atrocities abounded elsewhere.
They boasted of the better living conditions of blacks under white rule. And of how they were a “beacon of civilization” in a backward continent surrounded by countries wanting their “destruction”. They labelled armed resistance as terrorism and gave blacks truncated enclaves ruled by powerless chieftains and called it self-determination.Sound familiar?
Ah, but we in North America are ardent supporters of Israel so obviously, this cannot be the case…
[Source]
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
15 comments
July 12, 2014 at 8:31 am
Arkenaten
Let’s ask the Yahweh, as he/He is at the heart of it all, not so?
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July 12, 2014 at 8:43 am
The Arbourist
@Ark
We should, but we should also pay close attention because recently(?) Yahweh has been on the imperial bandwagon justifying the heck out what powerful nations are doing in their best interests.
I’m not sure how his imperial-bias works, given his commitment to all his children and love and all that goodly sounding shit fed to the parishioners…
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July 12, 2014 at 8:59 am
syrbal-labrys
Yes, I’ve watched this with growing horror; but then it has been years and years since I’ve been able to feel Israel has become anything except the things her people once hated.
But America doesn’t seem to care about children anyway, you know? They don’t care if our won go to bed hungry, they don’t care about refugee children desperately crossing our borders, and they don’t care about Iraqi, Pakistani, or Afghani children in our stupid corporate-imperialistic wars. So, they have no sympathy for the children of Gaza.
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July 12, 2014 at 9:10 am
The Arbourist
@Syrbal
Me too. People have lost their basic sense of humanity over there drown out by religious and political rhetoric that assures them that they are in “the right” and should continue to soldier on…
They must see the irony in what they are doing, how could they not?
The problem with atomizing society, everyone going it ‘alone’, is the weakening of the empathy we have for each other. Lack of understanding the other will be the end of us.
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July 12, 2014 at 9:21 am
syrbal-labrys
Yeah, I call it “Survivor” mentality — foisted AND fostered by stupid Malthusian “reality” game shows. I can’t tell you how I HATE that mentality.
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July 12, 2014 at 10:40 am
john zande
Considering they’re both Canaanites, the dehumanisation of the “other” which goes on by both sides is all the more ludicrous.
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July 12, 2014 at 10:57 am
The Arbourist
@JZ
Query:
Since when is religious sectarianism bounded by facts?
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July 12, 2014 at 11:35 am
john zande
I’m guessing, trick question :)
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July 12, 2014 at 11:38 am
The Arbourist
@JZ
*Ding-ding*
The answer of course is always (bounded by fact) because God makes the facts as he sees fit!!
Whew, DWR is just full of pratfalls for the unwary. :)
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July 12, 2014 at 12:06 pm
bleatmop
Ug… What an ugly situation there. Israel is clearly the Goliath at the moment but I have no illusions about what the situation would be if the situation were to be reversed. Israel does do shitty things all the time to their neighbors, especially the Palestinians, but I also can’t blame them for doing their targeted assassinations and whatnot. They certainly are surrounded by enemies that want nothing less than their utter destruction. The PLO, Hammas, FATAH, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran. Certainly Egypt can be considered again now that it seems the Muslim Brotherhood is running the country. Iraq will be whenever they have a victor to their civil war.
Israel certainly doesn’t help themselves either with their continued aggressive settlement expansions. However, I don’t see there being any party in the region that is in “the right”. Firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel to murder whomever they hit certainly isn’t a proportional response to any Israeli aggressions.
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July 12, 2014 at 1:44 pm
The Arbourist
@Bleatmop
The power gradients in this situation are very important. It behooves those who have the dominant position to make the first move, or be goading into it by international pressure; as what happened in South Africa (to a certain extent).
International pressure on Israel is being LOL’ed because as long as the US tacitly (and not so tacitly) continues its unwavering support of Israel nothing will change.
I would object less, if they stopped presenting themselves as a democracy and under the rule of ‘Law’. Israel exists today because of the failed imperial machinations that have fractured the Middle East necessitating a state to be the police man in the area. If there wasn’t the thundering drumbeat of western oil security deafening all arguments for Palestinian statehood we may very well see a similar resolution as what happened in South Africa.
What is a proportional response when your land is being systematically segmented and partitioned away? When access to vital aquifers and water is facing a similar situation. Where does proportionality lie when the economic blockade means you cannot feed your children, or have access to the medical care they need?
The people in the occupied territories are second class citizens and are treated as such. I too cannot condone their use of violence, but I can certainly see where they are coming from.
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July 13, 2014 at 10:04 am
VR Kaine
Interesting interview, if real:
http://www.vice.com/read/hamas-fatah-v14n10
Not to be confused with HBO’s “Vice”, which I think is an excellent “current affairs” program. If they revisited this topic it would be a good episode to see. Side question – anyone see the episode on Greenland and the ice melting?
http://www.hbocanada.com/vice/
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July 13, 2014 at 11:38 am
The Arbourist
@Vern
Gaaa! Got sucked into the clickbait do’s & donts.
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July 13, 2014 at 12:44 pm
bleatmop
@Arb – I agree that the strangling off of aquifers and leaving people without water is awful and wrong. However the economic isolation that the walling off of the Palestinian lands is a direct response to the continual suicide bombings that we saw in Israeli lands before the wall went up. Since the wall there have been significantly less marketplaces of people blown up by suicide bombers.
As far as your South Africa model, I just don’t see it happening in Israel. I think the situations are significantly different. South Africa did not have the problem of two different religions that, when not controlled by a secular constitution, proceed to murder each other until one side is completely dominated, and I don’t see either side in this conflict being interested in a secular constitution. I think that so long as both sides have religious claims to the land in question there will be violent conflict. And as always, both sides are wrong in their religious approach to the situation.
In my opinion there will only be two solutions to ending the violence.
1. Israeli annexation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank and deportation of the Palestinian people to the country of their choice, likely Jordan. Then Israel building walls along their current territory and having the rest of the world (read the USA) informing them that further territory expansion will not be tolerated and will result in the end of their protection.
2. The destruction of the state of Israel. The scattering of the Jewish people around the world, likely to secular democracies around the world.
To me, any attempts at peace that does not involve one of these solutions will only, at best, result in a temporary cease fire. Maybe this makes me a pessimist, but I just don’t see it playing out any other way.
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July 13, 2014 at 1:31 pm
The Arbourist
@Bleatmop
And the suicide bombers where a direct response to illegal occupation of Palestinian land and resources. One action is always feeding the other, it goes both ways and both ways are founded on irrationality. A better question to ask is where is the just solution to the problem, and how much compromise will be required by both sides so they can stop killing each other.
Agreed. We’ll file this under “How religion poisons everything”.
They are not!! Shedding blood over who’s magic is the strongest is a completely rational way to deal with the situation. It’s like the religious Thunderdome!
Hopefully a compromise will be found before these ends need to be realized.
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