Gaza Redux
It’s only the blood of children
© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
November 19, 2012
“Our enemy is drowning in the blood of [our] children.”
That statement, delivered by Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, sums up the utter futility and madness of the conflict in the Gaza zone over the past week.
Juan Cole, speaking in a different context, wrote, “Images of dead babies would inflame the Muslim world and cause huge headaches for the US.” The heartlessness inherent in that statement isn’t Cole’s; he was describing how the civilian casualties expected would raise the political stakes and make a general war in the region more likely.
Both, however, touch on the deepest tragedy of this conflict. It’s mostly men, women and children who are non-combatants, who are dying. When the media report that Israel is making surgical strikes, they’re lying through their goddamn teeth. These are flying bombs, landing in densely-populated areas nearly at random. And there is no real equivalency here: The rockets that some shadowy figures in Gaza fire into Israel are little more than toys, a statement born out by the low Israeli casualties.
Netanyahu claims the latest assault by Israel was provoked by these rocket attacks, and most likely Netanyahu is lying. He’s defensive in the wake of the American election, where he put his bets on Romney, all but anointing the cold little plutocrat the new American president without waiting for the formality of a vote, and becoming more and more derisive and disrespectful to Barack Obama. Like most fascists, he was convinced the Republicans had the White House in the bag, regardless of what the American people wanted.
