STEALING GAZA: An Experiment In Provocation
It's a tragedy that the Israelis - a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression - are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked "Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it's the Palestinians". By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they've forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians - with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers - and themselves - with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world - they sacrifice all credibility.
The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.
Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly... and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?
Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.
And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.
- Brian Eno
- Brian Eno
Eno/U2 - One
4 comments:
Your logic (which I disagree with):
* You say that those who support the war in Iraq but don't enlist or join the fight in some physical capacity are pussies.
Your stance on the war in Afghanistan:
* You support this war.
Using your logic (which I believe is flawed), doesn't the fact that you haven't enlisted or haven't rejoined a mercenary team to physically fight the war in some capacity make YOU a pussy?
So:
"Support the Iraq war and don't join/enlist/sign up with private mercenary group" = "Pussy"
"Support the Afghanistan war and don't join/enlist/sign up with private mercenary group" = "Pussy"? (or what? You tell me!)
I'm curious if your retarded logic holds true for wars that you support. I look forward to your support and/or dodge.
On September 11th 2001 the US was attacked by agents of Al Qaeda under the direction of Osama Bin Laden resulting in the deaths of close to 3,000 people. By July of 2002 the President and his administration had all but forgotten Osama Bin Laden and from that time it wouldn't be until November of 2003 that George Bush would even say Bin Laden's name in public, and then only after being directly questioned about him. His response, as I'm sure you remember, was that he "didn't think about him all that much."
When somebody kills 3,000 of my countrymen, I don't forget about it, and it's not only my right but my duty as a citizen to speak out about it, which is why the freeways of California started sporting hundreds of "Osama Who?" and "Osama Bin Forgotten" signs, along with others reminding people just how long it had been since Bush had dared utter the name.
This "Forgive and Forget" approach towards Bin Laden may be okay for you conservatives, but not for me. When the President and the press all decide to give a pass of my to Bin Laden in order to focus national attention on Iraq, then it's the citizens' job to try and rectify it: so I did... to the best of my ability with the resources I had. What did you do?
Point of clarification in regards to military service: the military is for people who follow orders. I don't.
every honest man i've ever met who enlisted during a time of war was either homicidal or suicidal
mwah: you have not met a lot of enlisted men.
regardless of how i feel about this war, I hope the Israeli's rebuild the things they have destroyed after this is all done with. marshall plan style.
www.comewhinewithme.blogspot.com
Post a Comment