For Dead Palestinians and Israelis words from King Lear ring in my ears, "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport."
It's been a week since Hamas unleashed a bestial bloodletting on innocent Israelis. It was as gruesome, terrifying and trauma-inducing as any pogrom conducted in the past against the Jewish people. 1300 people mass murdered is a war crime. The taking of 120 civilian hostages by Hamas is also a war crime. Interpreting heinous deeds through the lens of history or in the context of oppressed and oppressor doesn't lessen the war crime, nor excuse it.
Hamas on October 7th- like Bin Laden's 911 had an endgame outside of creating terror, fear, hate and revulsion. The purpose is to make their enemies unleash punitive actions that are so appalling that a wider war ensues. Revenge and retribution polarises nations, regions and people causing them to blindly choose sides. It is how world wars begin and then are fought to an end that leaves millions dead. Enemies are portrayed as so irredeemably evil they deserve whatever punishment is meted out to them. Compassion is misplaced and excuses are made to justify crimes against humanity committed against civilians. People start to reason as causalities of their enemies mount up “They had it coming to them.” And so it goes until no hands are clean from killing.
Hamas' strategy has worked. Sides were immediately taken over this Gaza War and won't shift. If you aren't for the Israeli government's siege, and starvation of the civilian inhabitants of Gaza or destruction of its infrastructure, you are with the terrorists. If you aren't for the bombing of schools and hospitals, you are a supporter of Hamas. If you aren't for the ethnic cleansing of 1.1 million Gazans in the north of their region, you support Isis. Our politicians and news media have told us by their blind allegiance to the conduct of this war that America's Civil War General Tecumseh Sherman is our way of life. "War is Hell", and there isn't shit we can do about it.
The people of Gaza aren't Nazi Germany in miniature but 2.3 million individuals living under oppression made in Israel and taken advantage of by Hamas.
Palestinians exist in extreme economic deprivation in Gaza because its population is demoralised and dehumanised by extreme poverty that is unending unless the occupation ends. But it is a colonial propaganda trick when the Israeli government states Palestinians are poor because they don't want peace and are too belligerent to deserve nationhood.
Israelis, Palestinians and much of the world are caught in the high beams of a Mideast history that is a grim, repeating roll call of the dead, killed under the eye for and eye laws of retribution.
The past is our map to the future, and it suggests the current Gaza war will beget a larger conflagration that will inflame the globe. It has already begun, considering how the only noise we hear are the barks from the dogs of war summoned by a corporate news media who helped manufacture consent for the Iraq War. They have begun creating a narrative to normalise Gaza eradication through air war, artillery, and soon infantry assaults. Many Individual journalists to their credit are resisting the group think and attempting to report accurately the truth on the ground. Whether they will get the air time or column inches to inform the public and sway public opinion to reason is doubtful.
Since last Saturday, the words of Gloucester from King Lear ring in my ears for dead and soon to die Israelis and Palestinians, As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.
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"We can and we must stop this. Never again means never again - for everyone."
Jewish Voice for Peace is demanding that the US government works towards de-escalation and immediately stops sending arms to Israel. Other Jewish groups and individuals are also speaking out. I hope their voices will be heard.
Thank you John. Well said.