views
1/ Run of the mill Israelis don't talk about the starvation of Gaza. There is a lot of chatter about how Hamas is responsible for the Gazans' plight. There is no mercy for the Gazans who die in the daily bombings and bombardments. Even acknowledgement is rare. --->
2/ "Hamas must be destroyed" is accepted as sufficient reasoning for everything from indiscriminate slaughter to "errors in judgment" made by Israeli field commanders (for example, the destruction of Al-Israa university by Brigadier General Barak Hiram). --->
3/ Presented with such an all-encompassing goal, the "collateral damage" of Gazan deaths is a price Israelis are willing to pay, like Lord Farquad in "Shrek". As long as the narrative can be contained within a military framework Israelis can accept is as "professional". --->
4/ But regular people don't talk
about the starvation. That is a little strange, because from the beginning of the "war" pundits representing the entire Israeli political spectrum have spoken on record about the "benefits" of starvation. One might expect public debate. --->
about the starvation. That is a little strange, because from the beginning of the "war" pundits representing the entire Israeli political spectrum have spoken on record about the "benefits" of starvation. One might expect public debate. --->
5/ One would be wrong. Very few people talk about starvation, about the Israeli policy and about the famine already beginning to rage in the northern part of the strip. Even those eager to kill or deport Gazans tend to stay mum. There is little rejection or denial. --->
6/ We don't talk about it. We know, I think, that starvation and ensuing famine are points of no return. We cannot blame Hamas. We cannot abuse the spectres of Israel's own victims, nearly 1200 massacred by Hamas, in our eyes the ultimate justification for endless death. --->
7/ The starvation and the famine are what we fear most, so deeply that we could never express this fear in words - that our chickens have come home to roost. We fear what we have become. We cannot pretend that this is not who we are, that we've been hijacked by "extremists". --->
8/ We know. We know that decades of promoting Jewish supremacy and its necessary counterpart, the total dehumanization of the Palestinians, have brought us to this point. We cannot imagine ourselves validated by anything other than this supremacy. --->
9/ Some of us relish the occasion. Most of us believed we had solid foundations even if our house was built on a faultline. Now, however, we stare silently at the receding edge of the abyss as we fall.
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